
Class. 
Book. 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



Shop Management 






Shop Management 



BY 

FREDERICK WINSLOW TAYLOR, M.E., Sc.D. 

PAST PRESIDENT OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF 
MECHANICAL ENGINEERS 

Author of "The Principles of Scientific Management" 



WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY 
HENRY R. TOWNE 

PRESIDENT OF THE YALE & TOWNE MFG. CO. 




HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 

NEW YORK AND LONDON 
I9II 






COPYRIGHT, 191 1 
BY FREDERICK W. TAYLOR 



THE • PLIMPTON • PRESS ■ NORWOOD • MASS • U • S • A 



H~IHli4 



(F>\ pi /\ 'i o n o o«9 



FOREWORD 

BY HENRY R. TOWNE 

Past President, A.S.M.E. 

President of the Yale and Towne Manufacturing Company 

ASa fellow-worker with Dr. Taylor, in the field of 
*^ industrial management, I have followed the 
development of his work, almost from its com- 
mencement, with constantly increasing admiration 
for the exceptional talent which he has brought to 
this new field of investigation, and with constantly 
increasing realization of the fundamental importance 
of the methods which he has initiated. The substi- 
tution of machinery for unaided human labor was 
the great industrial achievement of the nineteenth 
century. The new achievement to which Dr. Tay- 
lor points the way consists in elevating human labor 
itself to a higher plane of efficiency and of earning 
power. 

In a paper entitled "The Engineer as an Econo- 
mist," contributed to the Proceedings of The American 
Society of Mechanical Engineers in May, 1886, I 
made the following statements: 

"The monogram of our national initials, which is 
the symbol for our monetary unit, the dollar, is 
almost as frequently conjoined to the figures of an 
engineer's calculations as are the symbols indicating 
feet, minutes, pounds, or gallons. The final issue 

5 



6 FOREWORD 

of his work, in probably a majority of cases, resolves 
itself into a question of dollars and cents, of relative 
or absolute values. ... To ensure the best results, 
the organization of productive labor must be directed 
and controlled by persons having not only good 
executive ability, and possessing the practical famil- 
iarity of a mechanic or engineer, with the goods 
produced and the processes employed, but having 
also, and equally, a practical knowledge of how to 
observe, record, analyze, and compare essential facts 
in relation to wages, supplies, expense accounts, and 
all else that enters into or affects the economy of 
production and the cost of the product." 

As pertinent to the subject of industrial engineer- 
ing, I will also quote the following from an address 
delivered by me, in February, 1905, to the graduating 
students of Purdue University: 

"The dollar is the final term in almost every 
equation which arises in the practice of engineering 
in any or all of its branches, except qualifiedly as to 
military and naval engineering, where in some cases 
cost may be ignored. In other words, the true func- 
tion of the engineer is, or should be, not only to deter- 
mine how physical problems may be solved, but also 
how they may be solved most economically. For 
example, a railroad may have to be carried over a 
gorge or arroyo. Obviously it does not need an 
engineer to point out that this may be done by filling 
the chasm with earth, but only a bridge engineer is 
competent to determine whether it is cheaper to do 
this or to bridge it, and to design the bridge which 
will safely and most cheaply serve, the cost of which 



FOREWORD 7 

should be compared with that of an earth fill. There- 
fore the engineer is, by the nature of his vocation, 
an economist. His function is not only to design, 
but also so to design as to ensure the best economical 
result, He who designs an unsafe structure or an 
inoperative machine is a bad engineer; he who 
designs them so that they are safe and operative, 
but needlessly expensive, is a poor engineer, and, 
it may be remarked, usually earns poor pay; he who 
designs good work, which can be executed at a fair 
cost, is a sound and usually a successful engineer; 
he who does the best work at the lowest cost sooner 
or later stands at the top of his profession, and 
usually has the reward which this implies." 

I avail of these quotations to emphasize the fact 
that industrial engineering, of which shop manage- 
ment is an integral and vital part, implies not merely 
the making of a given product, but the making of 
that product at the lowest cost consistent with the 
maintenance of the intended standard of quality. 
The attainment of this result is the object which 
Dr. Taylor has had in view during the many years 
through which he has pursued his studies and inves- 
tigations. The methods explained and the rules 
laid down in the following monograph by him — 
probably the most valuable contribution yet made 
to the literature of industrial engineering — are 
intended to enable and to assist others engaged in 
this field of work to utilize and apply his methods 
to their several individual problems. 

The monograph which is here republished was Dr. 
Taylor's first, great contribution to industrial engi- 



8 FOREWORD 

neering, the second being the paper entitled "On the 
Art of Cutting Metals" (248 pages, with 24 insert 
folders covering illustrations and tables) which he 
presented as his Presidential Address to The Ameri- 
can Society of Mechanical Engineers at its meeting 
in December, 1906, in the discussion of which at 
that meeting I made the following comments: 

"Mr. Taylor's paper on 'The Art of Cutting 
Metals' is a masterpiece. Based on what is un- 
doubtedly the longest, largest, and most exhaustive 
series of experiments ever conducted in this field, 
its summary of the conclusions deduced therefrom 
embodies the most important contribution to our 
knowledge of this subject which has ever been made. 
The subject itself relates to the foundation on which 
all of our metal-working industries are built. 

" About sixty years ago American invention 
lifted one of the earliest and most universal of the 
manual arts from the plane on which it had stood 
from the dawn of civilization to the high level of 
modern mechanical industry. This was the achieve- 
ment of the sewing-machine. About thirty years 
ago, American invention again took one of the oldest 
of the manual arts, that of writing, and brought it 
fairly within the scope of modern mechanical develop- 
ment. This was the achievement of the typewriting- 
machine. The art of forming and tempering metal 
tools undoubtedly is coeval with the passing of the 
stone age, and, therefore, in antiquity is at least as 
old, if indeed it does not outrank, the arts of sewing 
and writing. Like them it has remained almost 
unchanged from the beginning until nearly the 



FOREWORD 9 

present time. The work of Mr. Taylor and his 
associates has lifted it at once from the plane of 
empiricism and tradition to the high level of modern 
science, and apparently has gone far to reduce it 
almost to an exact science. In no other field of 
original research, that I can recall, has investigation, 
starting from so low a point, attained so high a level 
ab the result of a single continued effort." 

The investigations on which the report last referred 
to was based extended over a period of twenty-six 
years and involved the expenditure of some $200,000, 
the funds being contributed by ten industrial cor- 
porations. No other argument is needed to demon- 
strate Dr. Taylor's thoroughness and inexhaustible 
patience than the simple fact that he pursued these 
investigations continuously through that long period 
before deciding that he was ready and prepared to 
make known to the world his conclusions. 

The conclusions embodied in Dr. Taylor's "Shop 
Management" constitute in effect the foundations 
for a new science — "The Science of Industrial Man- 
agement." As in the case of constructive work the 
ideal engineer is he who does the best work at the 
lowest cost, so also, in the case of industrial opera- 
tions, the best manager is he who so organizes the 
forces under his control that each individual shall 
work at his best efficiency and shall be compensated 
accordingly. Dr. Taylor has demonstrated con- 
clusively that, to accomplish this, it is essential to 
segregate the planning of work from its execution; 
to employ for the former trained experts possessing 
the right mental equipment, and for the latter men 



10 FOREWORD 

having the right physical equipment for their respect- 
ive tasks and being receptive of expert guidance in 
their performance. Under Dr. Taylor's leadership 
the combination of these elements has produced, in 
numberless cases, astonishing increments of output 
and of earnings per employe. 

We are proud of the fact that the United States 
has led all other nations in the development of labor- 
saving machinery in almost every field of industry. 
Dr. Taylor has shown us methods whereby we can 
duplicate this achievement by vastly increasing the 
efficiency of human labor, and of accomplishing 
thereby a large increase in the wage-earning capacity 
of the workman, and a still larger decrease in the 
labor cost of his product. 

The records of experience, and the principles 
deduced therefrom, set forth by Dr. Taylor in this 
book, should interest and appeal to all workers in the 
industrial field, employer and employe alike, for 
they point the way to increased efficiency and earn- 
ing power for both. We are justly proud of the high 
wage rates which prevail throughout our country, 
and jealous of any interference with them by the 
products of the cheaper labor of other countries. 
To maintain this condition, to strengthen our con- 
trol of home markets, and, above all, to broaden our 
opportunities in foreign markets where we must 
compete with the products of other industrial nations, 
we should welcome and encourage every influence 
tending to increase the efficiency of our productive 
processes. Dr. Taylor's contributions to this end 
are fundamental in character and immeasurable in 



FOREWORD 11 

ultimate effect. They concern organized industry 
in each and all of its infinite forms and manifesta- 
tions. If intelligently and effectively utilized, they 
will greatly enhance the incomes of our wage-earners. 
Believing profoundly in the truth of these state- 
ments, I express the hope that all who are concerned 
in our national industries, of every kind, will study 
and profit by the new science of Scientific Manage- 
ment, of which Dr. Taylor is concededly the leading 
investigator and exponent, and of which the basic 
principles are set forth in the following pages. 



PREFACE 

"CHOP MANAGEMENT" is a handbook for 
those interested in the management of indus- 
trial enterprises and in the production of goods. 
It was_first published in 1903, under the auspices of 
The American Society of Mechanical Engineers, 
having been read at a meeting of that society held 
at Saratoga, N. Y., in June of that year. 

The growing interest in scientific management on 
the part of the lay public has seemed to call for a 
new edition of this book. The demands upon the 
author's time have been such as to preclude his per- 
sonally giving much attention to seeing the book 
through the press. No material changes in the text 
have been found necessary. At several points words 
have been added to make the author's meaning clear 
to those with no technical knowledge of the subject. 
A number of inconsistencies as between the text 
and the tables and figures have been removed; some 
minor additions to the time-study data have been 
made; the illustrations have been redrawn or reset, 
and a comprehensive index appended. That part 
of the discussion of the monograph which took place 
at the meeting at which it was presented, and which 
seemed pertinent, has been worked in with the text. 

"The Principles of Scientific Management," pub- 
lished uniform with this book, is simply an argument 

13 



14 PREFACE 

for Mr. Taylor's Philosophy of Human Labor, — an 
outline of the fundamental principles on which it 
rests. In "Shop Management," however, the effort 
is made to describe the organization and some of the 
mechanisms by means of which this philosophy and 
these principles can be made effective in the work- 
shop, or on the market place. 

Mr. Taylor has written "Shop Management" in 
such a way that everything in it should be intelli- 
gible to any one with a high school education. It is 
the general testimony, however, of those who have 
used the book in actual practice that, with each 
re-reading, a larger significance attaches to its indus- 
trial program. 

We are indebted to Mr. Calvin W. Rice, the dis- 
tinguished Secretary of The American Society of 
Mechanical Engineers, for his encouragement in 
bringing out this new edition of "Shop Management." 

The Editor. 
May, 1911. 



Shop Management 



Shop Management 



rPHROUGH his business in changing the methods 
of shop management, the writer has been brought 
into intimate contact over a period of years with the 
organization of manufacturing and industrial estab- 
lishments, covering a large variety and range of 
product, and employing workmen in many of the 
leading trades. 

In taking a broad view of the field of management, 
the two facts which appear most noteworthy are: 

(a) What may be called the great unevenness, or 
lack of uniformity shown, even in our best run works, 
in the development of the several elements, which 
together constitute what is called the management. 

(b) The lack of apparent relation between good shop 
management and the payment of dividends. 

Although the day of trusts is here, still practically 
each of the component companies of the trusts was 
developed and built up largely through the energies 
and especial ability of some one or two men who were 
the master spirits in directing its growth. As a rule, 
this leader rose from a more or less humble position 
in one of the departments, say in the commercial or 
the manufacturing department, until he became the 
head of his particular section. Having shown espe- 
cial ability in his line, he was for that reason made 
manager of the whole establishment. 

17 



18 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

In examining the organization of works of this 
class, it will frequently be found that the manage- 
ment of the particular department in which this 
master spirit has grown up towers to a high point 
of excellence, his success having been due to a thor- 
ough knowledge of all of the smallest requirements 
of his section, obtained through personal contact, 
and the gradual training of the men under him to 
their maximum efficiency. 

The remaining departments, in which this man 
has had but little personal experience, will often pre- 
sent equally glaring examples of inefficiency. And 
this, mainly because management is not yet looked 
upon as an art, with laws as exact, and as clearly 
denned, for instance, as the fundamental principles 
of engineering, which demand long and careful 
thought and study. Management is still looked 
upon as a question of men, the old view being that 
if you have the right man the methods can be safely 
left to him. 

The following, while rather an extreme case, may 
still be considered as a fairly typical illustration of 
the unevenness of management. It became desirable 
to combine two rival manufactories of chemicals. 
The great obstacle to this combination, however, and 
one which for several years had proved insurmount- 
able, was that the two men, each of whom occupied 
the position of owner and manager of his company, 
thoroughly despised one another. One of these men 
had risen to the top of his works through the office at 
the commercial end, and the other had come up from 
a workman in the factory. Each one was sure that 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 19 

the other was a fool, if not worse. When they were 
finally combined it was found that each was right in 
his judgment of the other in a certain way. A com- 
parison of their books showed that the manufacturer 
was producing his chemicals more than forty per 
cent, cheaper than his rival, while the business man 
made up the difference by insisting on maintaining 
the highest quality, and by his superiority in selling, 
buying, and the management of the commercial side 
of the business. A combination of the two, however, 
finally resulted in mutual respect, and saving the 
forty per cent, formerly lost by each man. 

The second fact that has struck the writer as most 
noteworthy is that there is no apparent relation in 
many, if not most cases, between good shop manage- 
ment and the success or failure of the company, many 
unsuccessful companies having good shop manage- 
ment while the reverse is true of many which pay 
large dividends. 

We, however, who are primarily interested in the 
shop, are apt to forget that success, instead of hinging 
upon shop management, depends in many cases 
mainly upon other elements, namely, — the location 
of the company, its financial strength and ability, 
the efficiency of its business and sales departments, 
its engineering ability, the superiority of its plant and 
equipment, or the protection afforded either by pa- 
tents, combination, location or other partial monopoly. 

And even in those cases in which the efficiency of 
shop management might play an important part it 
must be remembered that for success no company 
need be better organized than its competitors. 



20 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

The most severe trial to which any system can be 
subjected is that of a business which is in keen com- 
petition over a large territory, and in which the labor 
cost of production forms a large element of the ex- 
pense, and it is in such establishments that one would 
naturally expect to find the best type of management. 

Yet it is an interesting fact that in several of the 
largest and most important classes of industries in 
this country shop practice is still twenty to thirty 
years behind what might be called modern manage- 
ment. Not only is no attempt made by them to do 
tonnage or piece work, but the oldest of old-fashioned 
day work is still in vogue under which one over- 
worked foreman manages the men. The workmen 
in these shops are still herded in classes, all of those 
in a class being paid the same wages, regardless of 
their respective efficiency. 

In these industries, however, although they are 
keenly competitive, the poor type of shop manage- 
ment does not interfere with dividends, since they 
are in this respect all equally bad. 

It would appear, therefore, that as an index to the 
quality of shop management the earning of dividends 
is but a poor guide. 

Any one who has the opportunity and takes the 
time to study the subject will see that neither good 
nor bad management is confined to any one system 
or type. He will find a few instances of good man- 
agement containing all of the elements necessary for 
permanent prosperity for both employers and men 
under ordinary day work, the task system, piece 
work, contract work, the premium plan, the bonus 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 21 

system and the differential rate; and he will find a 
very much larger number of instances of bad man- 
agement under these systems containing as they 
do the elements which lead to discord and ultimate 
loss and trouble for both sides. 

If neither the prosperity of the company nor any 
particular type or system furnishes an index to proper 
management, what then is the touchstone which in- 
dicates good or bad management? 

The art of management has been defined, "as 
knowing exactly what you want men to do, and then 
seeing that they do it in the best and cheapest way." 
No concise definition can fully describe an art, but 
the relations between employers and men form with- 
out question the most important part of this art. 
In considering the subject, therefore, until this part 
of the problem has been fully discussed, the other 
phases of the art may be left in the background. 

The progress of many types of management is 
punctuated by a series of disputes, disagreements 
and compromises between employers and men, and 
each side spends more than a considerable portion of 
its time thinking and talking over the injustice which 
it receives at the hands of the other. All such types 
are out of the question, and need not be considered. 

It is safe to say that no system or scheme of man- 
agement should be considered which does not in the , 
long run give satisfaction to both employer and em- 
ploye, which does not make it apparent that their 
best interests are mutual, and which does not bring 
about such thorough and hearty cooperation that 
they can pull together instead of apart. It cannot 



22 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

be said that this condition has as yet been at all 
generally recognized as the necessary foundation for 
good management. On the contrary, it is still quite 
generally regarded as a fact by both sides that in 
many of the most vital matters the best interests of 
employers are necessarily opposed to those of the 
men. In fact, the two elements which we will all 
agree are most wanted on the one hand by the men 
and on the other hand by the employers are generally 
looked upon as antagonistic. 

What the workmen want from their employers 
beyond anything else is high wages, and what em- 
ployers want from their workmen most of all is a 
low labor cost of manufacture. 

These two conditions are not diametrically opposed 
to one another as would appear at first glance. On 
the contrary, they can be made to go together in all 
classes of work, without exception, and in the writer's 
judgment the existence or absence of these two ele- 
ments forms the best index to either good or bad 
management. 

This book is written mainly with the object of 
advocating high wages and low labor cost as the 
foundation of the best management, of pointing out 
the general principles which render it possible to 
maintain these conditions even under the most try- 
ing circumstances, and of indicating the various steps 
which the writer thinks should be taken in changing 
from a poor system to a better type of management. 

The condition of high wages and low labor cost is 
far from being accepted either by the average man- 
ager or the average workman as a practical working 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 23 

basis. It is safe to say that the majority of employers 
have a feeling of satisfaction when their workmen 
are receiving lower wages than those of their com- 
petitors. On the other hand very many workmen 
feel contented if they find themselves doing the 
same amount of work per day as other similar 
workmen do and yet are getting more pay for it. 
Employers and workmen alike should look upon 
both of these conditions with apprehension, as 
either of them are sure, in the long run, to lead to 
trouble and loss for both parties. 

Through unusual personal influence and energy, 
or more frequently through especial conditions which 
are but temporary, such as dull times when there is 
a surplus of labor, a superintendent may succeed in 
getting men to work extra hard for ordinary wages. 
After the men, however, realize that this is the case 
and an opportunity comes for them to change these 
conditions, in their reaction against what they believe 
unjust treatment they are almost sure to lean so 
far in the other direction as to do an equally great 
injustice to their employer. 

On the other hand, the men who use the oppor- 
tunity offered by a scarcity of labor to exact wages 
higher than the average of their class, without 
doing more than the average work in return, are 
merely laying up trouble for themselves in the long 
run. They grow accustomed to a high rate of liv- 
ing and expenditure, and when the inevitable turn 
comes and they are either thrown out of employ- 
ment or forced to accept low wages, they are the 
losers by the whole transaction. 



24 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

The only condition which contains the elements 
of stability and permanent satisfaction is that in 
which both employer and employes are doing as 
well or better than their competitors are likely to do, 
and this in nine cases out of ten means high wages 
and low labor cost, and both parties should be equally 
anxious for these conditions to prevail. With them 
the employer can hold his own with his competitors 
at all times and secure sufficient work to keep his 
men busy even in dull times. Without them both 
parties may do well enough in busy times, but both 
parties are likely to suffer when work becomes scarce. 
%. The possibility of coupling high wages with a low 
labor cost rests mainly upon the enormous difference 
between the amount of work which a first-class man 
can do under favorable circumstances and the work 
which is actually done by the average man. 

That there is a difference between the average and 
the first-class man is known to all employers, but that 
the first-class man can do in most cases from two to 
four times as much as is done by an average man is 
known to but few, and is fully realized only by 
those who have made a thorough and scientific 
study of the possibilities of men. 

The writer has found this enormous difference 
between the first-class and average man to exist 
in all of the trades and branches of labor which he 
has investigated, and these cover a large field, as 
he, together with several of his friends, has been 
engaged with more than usual opportunities for 
thirty years past in carefully and systematically 
studying this subject. 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 25 

This difference in the output of first-class and 
average men is as little realized by the workmen as 
by their employers. The first-class men know that 
they can do more work than the average, but they 
have rarely made any careful study of the matter. 
And the writer has over and over again found them 
utterly incredulous when he informed them, after 
close observation and study, how much they were 
able to do. In fact, in most cases when first told 
that they are able to do two or three times as much 
as they have done they take it as a joke and will not 
believe that one is in earnest. 

It must be distinctly understood that in referring 
to the possibilities of a first-class man the writer does 
not mean what he can do when on a spurt or when he 
is over-exerting himself, but what a good man can 
keep up for a long term of years without injury to 
his health. It is a pace under which men become 
happier and thrive. 

The second and equally interesting fact upon which 
the possibility of coupling high wages with low labor 
cost rests, is that first-class men are not only willing 
but glad to work at their maximum speed, providing 
they are paid from 30 to 100 per cent, more than the 
average of their trade. 

The exact percentage by which the wages must be 
increased in order to make them work to their maxi- 
mum is not a subject to be theorized over, settled by 
boards of directors sitting in solemn conclave, nor 
voted upon by trades unions. It is a fact inherent in 
human nature and has only been determined through 
the slow and difficult process of trial and error. 



26 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

The writer has found, for example, after making 
many mistakes above and below the proper mark, 
that to get the maximum output for ordinary shop 
work requiring neither especial brains, very close 
application, skill, nor extra hard work, such, for in- 
stance, as the more ordinary kinds of routine machine 
shop work, it is necessary to pay about 30 per cent. 
more than the average. For ordinary day labor 
requiring little brains or special skill, but calling 
for strength, severe bodily exertion, and fatigue, 
it is necessary to pay from 50 per cent, to 60 per cent, 
above the average. For work requiring especial skill 
or brains, coupled with close application, but without 
severe bodily exertion, such as the more difficult and 
delicate machinist's work, from 70 per cent, to 80 
per cent, beyond the average. And for work re- 
quiring skill, brains, close application, strength, and 
severe bodily exertion, such, for instance, as that 
involved in operating a well run steam hammer 
doing miscellaneous work, from 80 per cent, to 100 
per cent, beyond the average. 

There are plenty of good men ready to do their 
best for the above percentages of increase, but if the 
endeavor is made to get the right men to work at 
this maximum for less than the above increase, it 
will be found that most of them will prefer their old 
rate of speed with the lower pay. After trying the 
high speed piece work for a while they will one after 
another throw up their jobs and return to the old 
day work conditions. Men will not work at their 
best unless assured a good liberal increase, which 
must be permanent. 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 27 

It is the writer's judgment, on the other hand, that 
for their own good it is as important that workmen 
should not be very much over-paid, as it is that they 
should not be under-paid. If over-paid, many will 
work irregularly and tend to become more or less 
shiftless, extravagant, and dissipated. It does not 
do for most men to get rich too fast. The writer's 
observation, however, would lead him to the con- 
clusion that most men tend to become more instead 
of less thrifty when they receive the proper increase 
for an extra hard day's work, as, for example, the 
percentages of increase referred to above. They live 
rather better, begin to save money, become more 
sober, and work more steadily. And this certainly 
forms one of the strongest reasons for advocating 
this type of management. 

In referring to high wages and low labor cost as 
fundamental in good management, the writer is most 
desirous not to be misunderstood. 

By high wages he means wages which are high only 
with relation to the average of the class to which the 
man belongs and which are paid only to those who 
do much more or better work than the average of 
their class. He would not for an instant advocate 
the use of a high-priced tradesman to do the work 
which could be done by a trained laborer or a lower- 
priced man. No one would think of using a fine 
trotter to draw a grocery wagon nor a Percheron to 
do the work of a little mule. No more should a 
mechanic be allowed to do work for which a trained 
laborer can be used, and the writer goes so far as to 
say that almost any job that is repeated over and 



28 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

over again, however great skill and dexterity it may 
require, providing there is enough of it to occupy a 
man throughout a considerable part of the year, 
should be done by a trained laborer and not by a 
mechanic. A man with only the intelligence of an 
average laborer can be taught to do the most diffi- 
cult and delicate work if it is repeated enough 
times; and his lower mental caliber renders him 
more fit than the mechanic to stand the monotony 
: of repetition. It would seem to be the duty of em- 
ployers, therefore, both in their own interest and in 
that of their employes, to see that each workman 
is given as far as possible the highest class of work 
for which his brains and physique fit him. A man, 
however, whose mental caliber and education do 
not fit him to become a good mechanic (and 
that grade of man is the one referred to as belong- 
ing to the "laboring class"), when he is trained 
to do some few especial jobs, which were formerly 
done by mechanics, should not expect to be paid 
the wages of a mechanic. He should get more 
than the average laborer, but less than a mechanic; 
thus insuring high wages to the workman, and low 
labor cost to the employer, and in this way 
making it most apparent to both that their interests 
are mutual. 

To summarize, then, what the aim in each estab- 
lishment should be: 

(a) That each workman should be given as far as 
possible the highest grade of work for which his 
ability and physique fit him. 

(b) That each workman should be called upon to 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 29 

turn out the maximum amount of work which a 
first-rate man of his class can do and thrive. 

(c) That each workman, when he works at the best 
pace of a first-class man, should be paid from 30 per 
cent, to 100 per cent, according to the nature of the 
work which he does, beyond the average of his class. 

And this means high wages and a low labor cost. 
These conditions not only serve the best interests of 
the employer, but they tend to raise each workman 
to the highest level which he is fitted to attain by 
making him use his best faculties, forcing him to 
become and remain ambitious and energetic, and 
giving him sufficient pay to live better than in the 
past. 

Under these conditions the writer has seen many 
first-class men developed who otherwise would have 
remained second or third class all of their lives. 

Is not the presence or absence of these conditions 
the best indication that any system of management 
is either well or badly applied? And in considering 
the relative merits of different types of management, 
is not that system the best which will establish these 
conditions with the greatest certainty, precision, and 
speed? 

In comparing the management of manufacturing 
and engineering companies by this standard, it is 
surprising to see how far they fall short. Few of 
those which are best organized have attained even 
approximately the maximum output of first-class 
men. 

Many of them are paying much higher prices per 
piece than are required to secure the maximum prod- 



30 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

uct; while owing to a bad system, lack of exact 
knowledge of the time required to do work, and 
mutual suspicion and misunderstanding between 
employers and men, the output per man is so 
small that the men receive little if any more than 
average wages, both sides being evidently the losers 
thereby. 

The chief causes which produce this loss to both 
parties are: First (and by far the most important), 
the profound ignorance of employers and their fore- 
men as to the time in which various kinds of work 
should be done, and this ignorance is shared largely 
by the workmen. 

Second: The indifference of the employers and their 
ignorance as to the proper system of management 
to adopt and the method of applying it, and further 
their indifference as to the individual character, 
worth, and welfare of their men. 

On the part of the men the greatest obstacle to 
the attainment of this standard is the slow pace which 
they adopt, or the loafing or " soldiering," marking 
time, as it is called. 

This loafing or soldiering proceeds from two causes. 
First, from the natural instinct and tendency of men 
to take it easy, which may be called natural soldiering. 
Second, from more intricate second thought and 
reasoning caused by their relations with other men, 
which may be called systematic soldiering. 

There is no question that the tendency of the 
average man (in all walks of life) is toward working 
at a slow, easy gait, and that it is only after a good 
deal of thought and observation on his part or as a 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 31 

result of example, conscience, or external pressure 
that he takes a more rapid pace. 

There are, of course, men of unusual energy, vital- 
ity, and ambition who naturally choose the fastest 
gait, set up their own standards, and who will work 
hard, even though it may be against their best in- 
terests. But these few uncommon men only serve 
by affording a contrast to emphasize the tendency of 
the average. 

This common tendency to "take it easy" is greatly 
increased by bringing a number of men together on 
similar work and at a uniform standard rate of pay 
by the day. 

Under this plan the better men gradually but surely 
slow down their gait to that of the poorest and least 
efficient. When a naturally energetic man works for 
a few days beside a lazy one, the logic of the situation 
is unanswerable: "Why should I work hard when 
that lazy fellow gets the same pay that I do and does 
only half as much work?" 

A careful time study of men working under these 
conditions will disclose facts which are ludicrous as 
well as pitiable. 

To illustrate: The writer has timed a naturally 
energetic workman who, while going and coming from 
work, would walk at a speed of from three to four 
miles per hour, and not infrequently trot home after 
a day's work. On arriving at his work he would 
immediately slow down to a speed of about one mile 
ah hour. When, for example, wheeling a loaded 
wheelbarrow he would go at a good fast pace even 
up hill in order to be as short a time as possible under 



32 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

load, and immediately on the return walk slow down 
to a mile an hour, improving every opportunity for 
delay short of actually sitting down. In order to be 
sure not to do more than his lazy neighbor he would 
actually tire himself in his effort to go slow. 

These men were working under a foreman of good 
reputation and one highly thought of by his em- 
ployer who, when his attention was called to this 
state of things, answered: "Well, I can keep them 
from sitting down, but the devil can't make them get 
a move on while they are at work." 

The natural laziness of men is serious, but by far 
the greatest evil from which both workmen and em- 
ployers are suffering is the systematic soldiering which 
is almost universal under all of the ordinary schemes 
of management and which results from a careful study 
on the part of the workmen of what they think will 
promote their best interests. 

The writer was much interested recently to hear 
one small but experienced golf caddy boy of twelve 
explaining to a green caddy who had shown special 
energy and interest the necessity of going slow and 
lagging behind his man when he came up to the ball, 
showing him that since they were paid by the hour, 
the faster they went the less money they got, and 
finally telling him that if he went too fast the other 
boys would give him a licking. 

This represents a type of systematic soldiering 
which is not, however, very serious, since it is done 
with the knowledge of the employer, who can quite 
easily break it up if he wishes. 

The greater part of the systematic soldiering, how- 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 33 

ever, is done by the men with the deliberate object 
of keeping their employers ignorant of how fast work 
can be done. 

So universal is soldiering for this purpose, that 
hardly a competent workman can be found in a large 
establishment, whether he works by the day or on 
piece work, contract work or under any of the ordi- 
nary systems of compensating labor, who does not 
devote a considerable part of his time to studying 
just hbw slowly he can work and still convince his 
employer that he is going at a good pace. 

The causes for this are, briefly, that practically all 
employers determine upon a maximum sum which 
they feel it is right for each of their classes of 
employes to earn per day, whether their men work 
by the day or piece. 

Each workman soon finds out about what this 
figure is for his particular case, and he also realizes 
that when his employer is convinced that a man is 
capable of doing more work than he has done, he will 
find sooner or later some way of compelling him to 
do it with little or no increase of pay. 

Employers derive their knowledge of how much of 
a given class of work can be done in a day from either 
their own experience, which has frequently grown 
hazy with age, from casual and unsystematic observa- 
tion of their men, or at best from records which are 
kept, showing the quickest time in which each job 
has been done. In many cases the employer will 
feel almost certain that a given job can be done faster 
than it has been, but he rarely cares to take the drastic 
measures necessary to force men to do it in the 



34 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

quickest time, unless he has an actual record, proving 
conclusively how fast the work can be done. 

It evidently becomes for each man's interest, then, 
to see that no job is done faster than it has been in 
the past. The younger and less experienced men are 
taught this by their elders, and all possible persuasion 
and social pressure is brought to bear upon the greedy 
and selfish men to keep them from making new 
records which result in temporarily increasing their 
wages, while all those who come after them are made 
to work harder for the same old pay. 

Under the best day work of the ordinary type, 
when accurate records are kept of the amount of work 
done by each man and of his efficiency, and when 
each man's wages are raised as he improves, and those 
who fail to rise to a certain standard are discharged 
and a fresh supply of carefully selected men are given 
work in their places, both the natural loafing and 
systematic soldiering can be largely broken up. This 
can be done, however, only when the men are thor- 
oughly convinced that there is no intention of es- 
tablishing piece work even in the remote future, and 
it is next to impossible to make men believe this when 
the work is of such a nature that they believe piece 
work to be practicable. In most cases their fear of 
making a record which will be used as a basis for 
piece work will cause them to soldier as much as they 
dare. 

It is, however, under piece work that the art of sys- 
tematic soldiering is thoroughly developed. After 
a workman has had the price per piece of the work he 
is doing lowered two or three times as a result of his 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 35 

having worked harder and increased his output, he 
is likely to entirely lose sight of his employer's side of 
the case and to become imbued with a grim determi- 
nation to have no more cuts if soldiering can prevent 
it. Unfortunately for the character of the workman, 
soldiering involves a deliberate attempt to mislead 
and deceive his employer, and thus upright and 
straight-forward workmen are compelled to become 
more or less hypocritical. The employer is soon 
looked upon as an antagonist, if not as an enemy, 
and the mutual confidence which should exist be- 
tween a leader and his men, the enthusiasm, the 
feeling that they are all working for the same end 
and will share in the results, is entirely lacking. 

The feeling of antagonism under the ordinary piece- 
work system becomes in many cases so marked on 
the part of the men that any proposition made by 
their employers, however reasonable, is looked upon 
with suspicion. Soldiering becomes such a fixed 
habit that men will frequently take pains to restrict 
the product of machines which they are running when 
even a large increase in output would involve no more 
work on their part. 

On work which is repeated over and over again 
and the volume of which is sufficient to permit it, 
the plan of making a contract with a competent work- 
man to do a certain class of work and allowing him 
to employ his own men subject to strict limitations, 
is successful. 

As a rule, the fewer the men employed by the con- 
tractor and the smaller the variety of the work, the 
greater will be the success under the contract system, 



36 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

the reason for this being that the contractor, under 
the spur of financial necessity, makes personally so 
close a study of the quickest time in which the work 
can be done that soldiering on the part of his men 
becomes difficult and the best of them teach laborers 
or lower-priced helpers to do the work formerly done 
by mechanics. 

The objections to the contract system are that the 
machine tools used by the contractor are apt to de- 
teriorate rapidly, his chief interest being to get a 
large output, whether the tools are properly cared 
for or not, and that through the ignorance and inex- 
perience of the contractor in handling men, his 
employes are frequently unjustly treated. 

These disadvantages are, however, more than 
counterbalanced by the comparative absence of 
soldiering on the part of the men. 

The greatest objection to this system is the 
soldiering which the contractor himself does in 
many cases, so as to secure a good price for his next 
contract. 

It is not at all unusual for a contractor to restrict 
the output of his own men and to refuse to adopt 
improvements in machines, appliances, or methods 
while in the midst of a contract, knowing that his 
next contract price will be lowered in direct pro- 
portion to the profits which he has made and the 
improvements introduced. 

Under the contract system, however, the relations 
between employers and men are much more agreeable 
and normal than under piece work, and it is to be 
regretted that owing to the nature of the work done 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 37 

in most shops this system is not more generally 
applicable. 

The writer quotes as follows from his paper on "A 
Piece Rate System," read in 1895, before The Ameri- 
can Society of Mechanical Engineers: 

" Cooperation, or profit sharing, has entered the 
mind of every student of the subject as one of the 
possible and most attractive solutions of the prob- 
lem; and there have been certain instances, both 
in England and France, of at least a partial success 
of cooperative experiments. 

"So far as I know, however, these trials have been 
made either in small towns, remote from the manu- 
facturing centers, or in industries which in many 
respects are not subject to ordinary manufacturing 
conditions. 

"Cooperative experiments have failed, and, I 
think, are generally destined to fail, for several rea- 
sons, the first and most important of which is, that 
no form of cooperation has yet been devised in which 
each individual is allowed free scope for his personal 
ambition. Personal ambition always has been and ¥ 
will remain a more powerful incentive to exertion 
than a desire for the general welfare. The few mis- 
placed drones, who do the loafing and share equally 
in the profits with the rest, under cooperation are sure 
to drag the better men down toward their level. 

"The second and almost equally strong reason for 
failure lies in the remoteness of the reward. The 
average workman (I don't say all men) cannot look 
forward to a profit which is six months or a year 
away. The nice time which they are sure to have 



38 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

to-day, if they take things easily, proves more 
attractive than hard work, with a possible reward 
to be shared with others six months later. 

" Other and formidable difficulties in the path of 
cooperation are, the equitable division of the profits, 
and the fact that, while workmen are always ready 
to share the profits, they are neither able nor willing 
to share the losses. Further than this, in many cases, 
it is neither right nor just that they should share 
either in the profits or the losses, since these may be 
due in great part to causes entirely beyond their 
influence or control, and to which they do not con- 
tribute." 

Of all the ordinary systems of management in 
use (in which no accurate scientific study of the time 
problem is undertaken, and no carefully measured 
tasks are assigned to the men which must be accom- 
plished in a given time) the best is the plan funda- 
mentally originated by Mr. Henry R. Towne, and 
improved and made practical by Mr. F. A. Halsey. 
This plan is described in papers read by Mr. Towne 
before The American Society of Mechanical Engineers 
in 1886, and by Mr. Halsey in 1891, and has since 
been criticised and ably defended in a series of articles 
appearing in the "American Machinist." 

The Towne-Halsey plan consists in recording the 
quickest time in which a job has been done, and fixing 
this as a standard. If the workman succeeds in doing 
the job in a shorter time, he is still paid his same 
wages per hour for the time he works on the job, and 
in addition is given a premium for having worked 
faster, consisting of from one-quarter to one-half the 



SHOP MANAGEMENT, 39 

difference between the wages earned and the wages 
originally paid when the job was done in standard 
time. Mr. Halsey recommends the payment of one- 
third of the difference as the best premium for most 
cases. The difference between this system and ordi- 
nary piece work is that the workman on piece work 
gets the whole of the difference between the actual 
time of a job and the standard time, while under the 
Towne-Halsey plan he gets only a fraction of this 
difference. 

It is not unusual to hear the Towne-Halsey plan 
referred to as practically the same as piece work. 
This is far from the truth, for while the difference 
between the two does not appear to a casual observer 
to be great, and the general principles of the two seem 
to be the same, still we all know that success or failure 
in many cases hinges upon small differences. 

In the writer's judgment, the Towne-Halsey plan 
is a great invention, and, like many other great 
inventions, its value lies in its simplicity. 

This plan has already been successfully adopted 
by a large number of establishments, and has resulted 
in giving higher wages to many workmen, accom- 
panied by a lower labor cost to the employer, and at 
the same time materially improving their relations by 
lessening the feeling of antagonism between the two. 

This system is successful because it diminishes 
soldiering, and this rests entirely upon the fact that 
since the workman only receives say one-third of the 
increase in pay that he would get under corresponding 
conditions on piece work, there is not the same temp- 
tation for the employer to cut prices. 



40 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

After this system has been in operation for a year 
or two, if no cuts in prices have been made, the 
tendency of the men to soldier on that portion of 
the work which is being done under the system is 
diminished, although it does not entirely cease. On 
the other hand, the tendency of the men to soldier 
on new work which is started, and on such portions 
as are still done on day work, is even greater under 
the Towne-Halsey plan than under piece work. 

To illustrate: Workmen, like the rest of mankind, 
are more strongly influenced by object lessons than 
by theories. The effect on men of such an object 
lesson as the following will be apparent. Suppose that 
two men, named respectively Smart and Honest, 
are at work by the day and receive the same pay, 
say 20 cents per hour. Each of these men is given 
a new piece of work which could be done in one hour. 
Smart does his job in four hours (and it is by no means 
unusual for men to soldier to this extent). Honest 
does his in one and one-half hours. 

Now, when these two jobs start on this basis under 
the Towne-Halsey plan and are ultimately done in 
one hour each, Smart receives for his job 20 cents per 
hour + a premium of -V 1 = 20 cents = a total of 40 
cents. Honest receives for his job 20 cents per hour 
+ a premium of V = 3i cents = a total of 2S\ cents. 

Most of the men in the shop will follow the example 
of Smart rather than that of Honest and will 
"soldier" to the extent of three or four hundred per 
cent, if allowed to do so. 

# The Towne-Halsey system shares with ordinary 
piece work then, the greatest evil of the latter, namely 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 41 

that its very foundation rests upon deceit, and under 
both of these systems there is necessarily, as we have 
seen, a great lack of justice and equality in the 
starting-point of different jobs. 

Some of the rates will have resulted from records 
obtained when a first-class man was working close to 
his maximum speed, while others will be based on 
the performance of a poor man at one-third or one- 
quarter speed. 

The injustice of the very foundation of the system 
is thus forced upon the workman every day of his 
life, and no man, however kindly disposed he may be 
toward his employer, can fail to resent this and be 
seriously influenced by it in his work. These sys- 
tems are, therefore, of necessity slow and irregular 
in their operation in reducing costs. They "drift" 
gradually toward an increased output, but under 
them the attainment of the maximum output of a 
first-class man is almost impossible. 

Objection has been made to the use of the word 
" drifting" in this connection. It is used absolutely 
without any intention of slurring the Towne-Halsey 
system or in the least detracting from its true merit. 

It appears to me, however, that "drifting" very 
accurately describes it, for the reason that the man- 
agement, having turned over the entire control of the 
speed problem to the men, the latter being influenced 
by their prejudices and whims, drift sometimes in 
one direction and sometimes in another; but on the 
whole, sooner or later, under the stimulus of the 
premium, move toward a higher rate of speed. This 
drifting, accompanied as it is by the irregularity and 



42 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

uncertainty both as to the final result which will 
be attained and as to how long it will take to reach 
this end, is in marked contrast to the distinct goal 
which is always kept in plain sight of both parties 
under task management, and the clear-cut directions 
which leave no doubt as to the means which are to 
be employed nor the time in which the work must be 
done; and these elements constitute the fundamental 
difference between the two systems. Mr. Halsey, 
in objecting to the use of the word " drifting" as 
describing his system, has referred to the use of his 
system in England in connection with a "rate-fix- 
ing" or planning department, and quotes as follows 
from his paper to show that he contemplated con- 
trol of the speed of the work by the management: 

"On contract work undertaken for the first time 
the method is the same except that the premium 
is based on the estimated time for the execution of 
the work." 

In making this claim Mr. Halsey appears to have 
entirely lost sight of the real essence of the two plans. 
It is task management which is in use in England, 
not the Towne-Halsey system; and in the above 
quotation Mr. Halsey describes not his system but 
a type of task management, in which the men are 
paid a premium for carrying out the directions given 
them by the management. 

There is no doubt that there is more or less con- 
fusion in the minds of many of those who have read 
about the task management and the Towne-Halsey 
system. This extends also to those who are actually 
using and working under these systems. This is 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 43 

practically true in England, where in some cases task 
management is actually being used under the name 
of the "Premium Plan." It would therefore seem 
desirable to indicate once again and in a little differ- 
ent way the essential difference between the two. 

The one element which the Towne-Halsey system 
and task management have in common is that both *-"' 
recognize the all-important fact that workmen can- 
not be induced to work extra hard without receiving » 
extra pay. Under both systems the men who suc- 
ceed are daily and automatically, as it were, paid an 
extra premium. The payment of this daily premium 
forms such a characteristic feature in both systems, 
and so radically differentiates these systems from 
those which were in use before, that people are apt 
to look upon this one element as the essence of both 
systems and so fail to recognize the more impor- 
tant, underlying principles upon which the success of 
each of them is based. 

In their essence, with the one exception of the pay- 
ment of a daily premium, the systems stand at the J 
two opposite extremes in the field of management; 
and it is owing to the distinctly radical, though 
opposite, positions taken by them that each one owes 
its success; and it seems to me a matter of importance 
that this should be understood. In any executive 
work which involves the cooperation of two different 
men or parties, where both parties have anything 
like equal power or voice in its direction, there is 
almost sure to be a certain amount of bickering, 
quarreling, and vacillation, and the success of the 
enterprise suffers accordingly. If, however, either 



44 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

one of the parties has the entire direction, the en- 
terprise will progress consistently and probably 
harmoniously, even although the wrong one of the 
two parties may be in control. 

Broadly speaking, in the field of management there 
are two parties — the superintendents, etc., on one 
side and the men on the other, and the main ques- 
tions at issue are the speed and accuracy with which 
the work shall be done. Up to the time that task 
management was introduced in the Midvale Steel 
Works, it can be fairly said that under the old sys- 
tems of management the men and the management 
had about equal weight in deciding how fast the work 
should be done. Shop records showing the quickest 
time in which each job had been done and more or 
less shrewd guessing being the means on which the 
management depended for bargaining with and 
coercing the men; and deliberate soldiering for the 
purpose of misinforming the management being the 
weapon used by the men in self-defense. Under 
the old system the incentive was entirely lacking 
which is needed to induce men to cooperate heartily 
with the management in increasing the speed with 
which work is turned out. It is chiefly due, under 
the old systems, to this divided control of the 
speed with which the work shall be done that such 
an amount of bickering, quarreling, and often hard 
feeling exists between the two sides. 

The essence of task management lies in the fact 
that the control of the speed problem rests entirely 
with the management; and, on the other hand, the 
true strength of the Towne-Halsey system rests 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 45 

upon the fact that under it the question of speed is 
settled entirely by the men without interference 
on the part of the management. Thus in both cases, 
though from diametrically opposite causes, there is 
undivided control, and this is the chief element 
needed for harmony. 

The writer has seen many jobs successfully nursed 
in several of our large and well managed establish- 
ments under these drifting systems, for a term of ten 
to fifteen years, at from one-third to one-quarter 
speed. The workmen, in the meanwhile, apparently 
enjoyed the confidence of their employers, and in 
many cases the employers not only suspected the 
deceit, but felt quite sure of it. 

The great defect, then, common to all the ordinary 
systems of management (including the Towne-Halsey 
system, the best of this class) is that their starting- 
point, their very foundation, rests upon ignorance 
and deceit, and that throughout their whole course 
in the one element which is most vital both to em- 
ployer and workmen, namely, the speed at which work 
is done, they are allowed to drift instead of being 
intelligently directed and controlled. 

The writer has found, through an experience of 
thirty years, covering a large variety in manufactures, 
as well as in the building trades, structural and engi- 
neering work, that it is not only practicable but 
comparatively easy to obtain, through a systematic 
and scientific time study, exact information as to 
how much of any given kind of work either a first- 
class or an average man can do in a day, and with 
this information as a foundation, he has over and 



46 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

over again seen the fact demonstrated that workmen 
of all classes are not only willing, but glad to give up 
all idea of soldiering, and devote all of their energies 
to turning out the maximum work possible, providing 
they are sure of a suitable permanent reward. 

With accurate time knowledge as a basis, sur- 
prisingly large results can be obtained under any 
scheme of management from day work up; there is no 
question that even ordinary day work resting upon 
this foundation will give greater satisfaction than any 
of the systems in common use, standing as they do 
upon soldiering as a basis. 

To'many of the readers of this book both the funda- 
mental objects to be aimed at, namely, high wages 
with low labor cost, and the means advocated by the 
writer for attaining this end; namely, accurate time 
study, will appear so theoretical and so far outside of 
the range of their personal observation and experience 
that it would seem desirable, before proceeding 
farther, to give a brief illustration of what has 
been accomplished in this line. 

The writer chooses from among a large variety of 
trades to which these principles have been applied, 
the yard labor handling raw materials in the works 
of the Bethlehem Steel Company at South Bethlehem, 
Pa., not because the results attained there have been 
greater than in many other instances, but because 
the case is so elementary that the results are evidently 
due to no other cause than thorough time study as 
a basis, followed by the application of a few simple 
principles with which all of us are familiar. 

In almost all of the other more complicated cases 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 47 

the large increase in output is due partly to the actual 
physical changes, either in the machines or small 
tools and appliances, which a preliminary time study 
almost always shows to be necessary, so that for 
purposes of illustration the simple case chosen is the 
better, although the gain made in the more compli- 
cated cases is none the less legitimately due to the 
system. 

Up to the spring of the year 1899, all of the ma- 
terials" in the yard of the Bethlehem Steel Company 
had been handled by gangs of men working by the 
day, and under the foremanship of men who had 
themselves formerly worked at similar work as 
laborers. Their management was about as good as 
the average of similar work, although it was bad; 
all of the men being paid the ruling wages of laborers 
in this section of the country, namely, $1.15 per 
day, the only means of encouraging or disciplining 
them being either talking to them or discharging 
them; occasionally, however, a man was selected 
from among these men and given a better class of 
work with slightly higher wages in some of the com- 
panies' shops, and this had the effect of slightly 
stimulating them. From four to six hundred men 
were employed on this class of work throughout 
the year. 

The work of these men consisted mainly of unload- 
ing from railway cars and shoveling on to piles, and 
from these piles again loading as required, the raw 
materials used in running three blast furnaces and 
seven large open-hearth furnaces, such as ore of vari- 
ous kinds, varying from fine, gravelly ore to that 



48 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

which comes in large lumps, coke, limestone, special 
pig, sand, etc., unloading hard and soft coal for boilers 
gas-producers, etc., and also for storage and again 
loading the stored coal as required for use, loading 
the pig-iron produced at the furnaces for shipment, 
for storage, and for local use, and handling billets, 
etc., produced by the rolling mills. The work cov- 
ered a large variety as laboring work goes, and it 
was not usual to keep a man continuously at the 
same class of work. 

Before undertaking the management of these men, 
the writer was informed that they were steady 
workers, but slow and phlegmatic, and that nothing 
would induce them to work fast. 

The first step was to place an intelligent, college- 
educated man in charge of progress in this line. This 
man had not before handled this class of labor, 
although he understood managing workmen. He was 
not familiar with the methods pursued by the writer, 
but was soon taught the art of determining how much 
work a first-class man can do in a day. This was 
done by timing with a stop watch a first-class man 
while he was working fast. The best way to do this, 
in fact almost the only way in which the timing can 
be done with certainty, is to divide the man's work 
into its elements and time each element separately. 
For example, in the case of a man loading pig-iron 
on to a car, the elements should be: (a) picking up 
the pig from the ground or pile (time in hundredths 
of a minute); (b) walking with it on a level (time 
per foot walked); (c) walking with it up an incline 
to car (time per foot walked); (d) throwing the pig 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 49 

down (time in hundredths of a minute), or laying it 
on a pile (time in hundredths of a minute) ; (e) walk- 
ing back empty to get a load (time per foot walked) . 

In case of important elements which were to enter 
into a number of rates, a large number of observations 
were taken when practicable on different first-class 
men, and at different times, and they were averaged. 

The most difficult elements to time and decide 
upon in this, as in most cases, are the percentage of 
the day required for rest, and the time to allow for 
accidental or unavoidable delays. 

In the case of the yard labor at Bethlehem, each 
class of work was studied as above, each element 
being timed separately, and, in addition, a record was 
kept in many cases of the total amount of work done 
by the man in a day. The record of the gross work 
of the man (who is being timed) is, in most cases, 
not necessary after the observer is skilled in his work. 
As the Bethlehem time observer was new to this 
work, the gross time was useful in checking his de- 
tailed observations and so gradually educating him 
and giving him confidence in the new methods. 

The writer had so many other duties that his per- 
sonal help was confined to teaching the proper 
methods and approving the details of the various 
changes which were in all cases outlined in written 
reports before being carried out. 

As soon as a careful study had been made of the 
time elements entering into one class of work, a single 
first-class workman was picked out and started on 
ordinary piece work on this job. His task required 
him to do between three and one-half and four times 



50 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

as much work in a day as had been done in the past 
"on an average. 

Between twelve and thirteen tons of pig-iron per 
man had been carried from a pile on the ground, up 
an inclined plank, and loaded on to a gondola car 
by the average pig-iron handler while working by the 
day. The men in doing this work had worked in 
gangs of from five to twenty men. 

The man selected from one of these gangs to make 
the first start under the writer's system was called 
upon to load on piece work from forty-five to forty- 
eight tons (2,240 lbs. each) per day. 

He regarded this task as an entirely fair one, and 
earned on an average, from the start, $1.85 per 
day, which was 60 per cent, more than he had been 
paid by the day. This man happened to be con- 
siderably lighter than the average good workman at 
this class of work. He weighed about 130 pounds. 
He proved, however, to be especially well suited to 
this job, and was kept at it steadily throughout the 
time that the writer was in Bethlehem, and some 
years later was still at the same work. 

Being the first piece work started in the works, 
it excited considerable opposition, both on the part 
of the workmen and of several of the leading men in 
the town, their opposition being based mainly on the 
old fallacy that if piece work proved successful a 
great many men would be thrown out of work, and 
that thereby not only the workmen but the whole 
town would suffer. 

One after another of the new men who were started 
singly on this job were either persuaded or intimi- 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 51 

dated into giving it up. In many cases they were 
given other work by those interested in preventing 
piece work, at wages higher than the ruling wages. 
In the meantime, however, the first man who 
started on the work earned steadily $1.85 per day, 
and this object lesson gradually wore out the con- 
certed opposition, which ceased rather suddenly 
after about two months. From this time on there 
was no difficulty in getting plenty of good men who 
were 'anxious to start on piece work, and the diffi- 
culty lay in making with sufficient rapidity the accu- 
rate time study of the elementary operations or "unit 
times" which forms the foundation of this kind of 
piece work. 

Throughout the introduction of piece work, when 
after a thorough time study a new section of the 
work was started, one man only was put on each new 
job, and not more than one man was allowed to work 
at it until he had demonstrated that the task set was 
a fair one by earning an average of $1.85 per day. 
After a few sections of the work had been started 
in this way, the complaint on the part of the better 
workmen was that they were not allowed to go on to 
piece work fast enough. 

It required about two years to transfer practically 
all of the yard labor from day to piece work. And 
the larger part of the transfer was made during the 
last six months of this time. 

As stated above, the greater part of the time was 
taken up in studying "unit times," and this time 
study was greatly delayed by having successively 
the two leading men who had been trained to the 



52 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

work leave because they were offered much larger 
salaries elsewhere. The study of "unit times" for 
the yard labor took practically the time of two 
trained men for two years. Throughout this time 
the day and piece workers were under entirely sepa- 
rate and distinct management. The original fore- 
men continued to manage the day work, and day 
and piece workers were never allowed to work to- 
gether. Gradually the day work gang was dimin- 
ished and the piece workers were increased as one 
section of work after another was transformed from 
the former to the latter. 

Two elements which were important to the success 
'of this work should be noted: 

First, on the morning following each day's work, 
each workman was given a slip of paper informing 
him in detail just how much work he had done the 
day before, and the amount he had earned. This 
enabled him to measure his performance against his 
earnings while the details were fresh in his mind. 
Without this there would have been great dissatis- 
faction among those who failed to climb up tc the 
task asked of them, and many would have gradually 
fallen off in their performance. 

Second, whenever it was practicable, each man's 
work was measured by itself. Only when absolutely 
necessary was the work of two men measured up 
together and the price divided between them, and 
then care was taken to select two men of as nearly 
as possible the same capacity. Only on few occasions, 
and then upon special permission, signed by the 
writer, were more than two men allowed to work on 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 53 

gang work, dividing their earnings between them. 
Gang work almost invariably results in a falling off 
in earnings and consequent dissatisfaction. 

An interesting illustration of the desirability of 
individual piece work instead of gang work came to 
our attention at Bethlehem. Several of the best 
piece workers among the Bethlehem yard laborers 
were informed by their friends that a much higher 
price per ton was paid for shoveling ore in another 
works than the rate given at Bethlehem. After 
talking the matter over with the writer he advised 
theni to go to the other works, which they accord- 
ingly did. In about a month they were all back at 
work in Bethlehem again, having found that at the 
other works they were obliged to work with a gang 
of men instead of on individual piece work, and 
that the rest of the gang worked so slowly that in 
spite of the high price paid per ton they earned 
much less than at Bethlehem. 

Table 1, on page 54, gives a summary of the work 
done by the piece-work laborers in handling raw 
materials, such as ores, anthracite and bituminous 
coal, coke, pig-iron, sand, limestone, cinder, scale, 
ashes, etc., in the works of the Bethlehem Steel 
Company, during the year ending April 30, 1900. 
This work consisted mainly in loading and unload- 
ing cars on arrival or departure from the works, 
and for local transportation, and was done entirely 
by hand, i.e., without the use of cranes or other 
machinery. 

The greater part of the credit for making the 
accurate time study and actually managing the men 



54 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 



on this work should be given to Mr. A. B. Wadleigh, 
the writer's assistant in this section at that time. 



Number of tons (2,240 lbs. per ton) handled 
on piece work during the year ending April 
30, 1901 

Total cost of handling 924, 040^0% tons in- 
cluding the piece work wages paid the 
men, and in addition all incidental day 
labor used 

Former cost of handling the same number of 
tons of similar materials on day work 

Net saving in handling 924,040^% t° n s of 
materials, effected in one year through 
substituting piece work for day work .... 

Average cost for handling a ton (2,240 lbs.) 
on piece and day work 

Average earnings per day, per man 

Average number of tons handled per day 
per man 




$0,072 
.15 



Table 1. — Showing Relative Cost of Yard Labor Under 
Task Piece Work and Old Sttle Day Work 

When the writer left the steel works, the Bethle- 
hem piece workers were the finest body of picked 
laborers that he has ever seen together. They were 
practically all first-class men, because in each case the 
task which they were called upon to perform was 
such that only a first-class man could do it. The 
tasks were all purposely made so severe that not more 

1 It was our intention to fix piece work rates which should enable first- 
class workmen to average about 60 per cent, more than they had been 
earning on day work, namely $1.85 per day. A year's average shows 
them to have earned $1.88 per day, or three cents per man per day more 
than we expected — an error of Its per cent. 

2 The piece workers handled on an average 3to\ times as many tons per 
day as the day workers. 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 55 

than one out of five laborers (perhaps even a smaller 
percentage than this) could keep up. 

It was clearly understood by each newcomer as he 
went to work that unless he was able to average at 
least $1.85 per day he would have to make way for 
another man who could do so. As a result, first- 
class men from all over that part of the country, 
who were in most cases earning from $1.05 to $1.15 
per day, were anxious to try their hands at earning 
$1 .85 per day. If they succeeded they were naturally 
contented, and if they failed they left, sorry that they 
were unable to maintain the proper pace, but with 
no hard feelings either toward the system or the 
management. Throughout the time that the writer 
was there, labor was as scarce and as difficult to get 
as it ever has been in the history of this country, 
and yet there was always a surplus of first-class 
men ready to leave other jobs and try their hand at 
Bethlehem piece work. 

Perhaps the most notable difference between these 
men and ordinary piece workers lay in their changed 
mental attitude toward their employers and their 
work, and in the total absence of soldiering on their 
part. The ordinary piece worker would have spent 
a considerable part of his time in deciding just how 
much his employer would allow him to earn without 
cutting prices and in then trying to come as close as 
possible to this figure, while carefully guarding each 
job so as to keep the management from finding out 
how fast it really could be done. These men, how- 
ever, were faced with a new but very simple and 
straightforward proposition, namely, am I a first- 



56 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

class laborer or not? Each man felt that if he 
belonged in the first class all he had to do was to 
work at his best and he would be paid sixty per cent, 
more than he had been paid in the past. Each 
piece work price was accepted by the men without 
question. They never bargained over nor complained 
about rates, and there was no occasion to do so, since 
they were all equally fair, and called for almost 
exactly the same amount of work and fatigue per 
dollar of wages. 
r A careful inquiry into the condition of these men 
when away from work developed the fact that out of 
the whole gang only two were said to be drinking 
men. This does not, of course, imply that many of 
them did not take an occasional drink. The fact is 
that a steady drinker would find it almost impossible 
to keep up with the pace which was set, so that they 
were practically all sober. Many if not most of them 
were saving money, and they all lived better than 
they had before. The results attained under this 
system were most satisfactory both to employer 
and workmen, and show in a convincing way the 
possibility of uniting high wages with a low labor 
cost. 

This is virtually a labor union of first-class men, 
who are united together to secure the extra high 
wages, which belong to them by right and which in 
this case are begrudged them by none, and which 
will be theirs through dull times as well as periods 
of activity. Such a union commands the unquali- 
fied admiration and respect of all classes of the com- 
munity; the respect equally of workmen, employers, 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 57 

political economists, and philanthropists. There 
are no dues for membership, since all of the expenses 
are paid by the company. The employers act as 
officers of the Union, to enforce its rules and keep 
its records, since the interests of the company are 
identical and bound up with those of the men. It 
is never necessary to plead with, or persuade men 
to join this Union, since the employers themselves 
organize it free of cost; the best workmen in the 
community are always anxious to belong to it. The 
feature most to be regretted about it is that the 
membership is limited. 

The words " labor union" are, however, unfor- 
tunately so closely associated in the minds of most 
people with the idea of disagreement and strife 
between employers and men that it seems almost 
incongruous to apply them to this case. Is not this, 
however, the ideal " labor union," with character 
and special ability of a high order as the only quali- 
fications for membership. 

It is a curious fact that with the people to whom 
the writer has described this system, the first feel- 
ing, particularly among those more philanthropic ally 
inclined, is one of pity for the inferior workmen who 
lost their jobs in order to make way for the first-class 
men. This sympathy is entirely misplaced. There 
was such a demand for labor at the time that no 
workman was obliged to be out of work for more 
than a day or two, and so the poor workmen were 
practically as well off as ever. The feeling, instead 
of being one of pity for the inferior workmen, should 
be one of congratulation and rejoicing that many 



58 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

first-class men — who through unfortunate circum- 
stances had never had the opportunity of proving 
their worth — at last were given the chance to earn 
high wages and become prosperous, 
i What the writer wishes particularly to emphasize 
is that this whole system rests upon an accurate 
and scientific study of unit times, which is by far 
the most important element in scientific manage- 
ment. With it, greater and more permanent results 
can be attained even under ordinary day work or 
piece work than can be reached under any of the 
more elaborate systems without it. 

In 1895 the writer read a paper before The Ameri- 
can Society of Mechanical Engineers entitled "A 
Piece Rate System." His chief object in writing it 
was to advocate the study of unit times as the 
foundation of good management. Unfortunately, he 
at the same time described the " differential rate" 
system of piece work, which had been introduced 
by him in the Midvale Steel Works. Although he 
called attention to the fact that the latter was entirely 
of secondary importance, the differential rate was 
widely discussed in the journals of this country and 
abroad while practically nothing was said about the 
study of "unit times." Thirteen members of the 
-Society discussed the piece rate system at length, 
and only two briefly referred to the study of the 
"unit times." 

The writer most sincerely trusts that his leading 
object in writing this book will not be overlooked, 
and that scientific time study will receive the atten- 
tion which it merits. Bearing in mind the Bethlehem 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 59 

yard labor as an illustration of the application of 
the study of unit times as the foundation of success 
in management, the following would seem to him a 
fair comparison of the older methods with the more 
modern plan. 

For each job there is the quickest time in which 
it can be done by a first-class man. This time may 
be called the " quickest time," or the "standard 
time" for the job. Under all the ordinary systems, 
this a quickest time" is more or less completely 
shrouded in mist. In most cases, however, the work- 
man is nearer to it and sees it more clearly than the 
employer. 

Under ordinary piece work the management watch 
every indication given them by the workmen as to 
what the "quickest time" is for each job, and en- 
deavor continually to force the men toward this 
"standard time," while the workmen constantly 
use every effort to prevent this from being done and 
to lead the management in the wrong direction. In 
spite of this conflict, however, the "standard time" 
is gradually approached. 

Under the Towne-Halsey plan the management 
gives up all direct effort to reach this " quickest time," 
but offers mild inducements to the workmen to do 
so, and turns over the whole enterprise to them. 
The workmen, peacefully as far as the management 
is concerned, but with considerable pulling and haul- 
ing among themselves, and without the assistance 
of a trained guiding hand, drift gradually and slowly 
in the direction of the "standard time," but rarely 
approach it closely. 



60 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

With accurate time study as a basis, the "quickest 
time" for each job is at all times in plain sight of both 
employers and workmen, and is reached with accu- 
racy, precision, and speed, both sides pulling hard in 
the same direction under the ^uniform simple and just 
agreement that whenever a first-class man works 
his best he will receive from 30 to 100 per cent, more 
than the average of his trade. 

Probably a majority of the attempts that are made 
to radically change the organization of manufactur- 
ing companies result in a loss of money to the com- 
pany, failure to bring about the change sought for, 
and a return to practically the original organization. 
The reason for this being that there are but few 
employers who look upon management as an art, 
and that they go at a difficult task without either 
having understood or appreciated the time required 
for organization or its cost, the troubles to be met 
with, or the obstacles to be overcome, and without 
having studied the means to be employed in doing 
so. 

Before starting to make any changes in the organi- 
zation of a company the following matters should 
be carefully considered: First, the importance of 
choosing the general type of management best suited 
to the particular case. Second, that in all cases 
money must be spent, and in many cases a great 
deal of money, before the changes are completed 
which result in lowering cost. Third, that it takes 
time to reach any result worth aiming at. Fourth, 
the importance of making changes in their proper 
order, and that unless the right steps are taken, and 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 61 

taken in their proper sequence, there is great danger 
from deterioration in the quality of the output and 
from serious troubles with the workmen, often result- 
ing in strikes. 

As to the type of management to be ultimately 
aimed at, before any changes whatever are made, 
it is necessary, or at least highly desirable, that the 
most careful consideration should be given to the 
type to be chosen; and once a scheme is decided 
upon it should be carried forward step by step without 
wavering or retrograding. Workmen will tolerate 
and even come to have great respect for one change 
after another made in logical sequence and according 
to a consistent plan. It is most demoralizing, how- 
ever, to have to recall a step once taken, whatever 
may be the cause, and it makes any further changes 
doubly difficult. 

The choice must be made between some of the 
types of management in common use, which the 
writer feels are properly designated by the word 
"drifting," and the more modern and scientific man- 
agement based on an accurate knowledge of how 
long it should take to do the work. If, as is fre- 
quently the case, the managers of an enterprise find 
themselves so overwhelmed with other departments 
of* the business that they can give but little thought 
to the management of the shop, then some one of 
the various " drifting" schemes should be adopted; 
and of these the writer believes the Towne-Halsey 
plan to be the best, since it drifts safely and peace- 
fully though slowly in the right direction; yet under 
it the best results can never be reached. The fact, 



62 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

however, that managers are in this way overwhelmed 
by their work is the best proof that there is something 
radically wrong with the plan of their organization 
and in self defense they should take immediate steps 
toward a more thorough study of the art. 

It is not at all generally realized that whatever 
system may be used, — providing a business is com- 
plex in its nature — the building up of an efficient 
organization is necessarily slow and sometimes very 
expensive. Almost all of the directors of manu- 
facturing companies appreciate the economy of a 
thoroughly modern, up-to-date, and efficient plant, 
and are willing to pay for it. Very few of them, 
however, realize that the best organization, what- 
ever its cost may be, is in many cases even more 
important than the plant; nor do they clearly realize 
that no kind of an efficient organization can be built 
up without spending money. The spending of money 
for good machinery appeals to them because they 
can see machines after they are bought; but putting 
money into anything so invisible, intangible, and 
to the average man so indefinite, as an organization 
seems almost like throwing it away. 
v There is no question that when the work to be 
done is at all complicated, a good organization with 
a poor plant will give better results than the best 
plant with a poor organization. One of the most 
successful manufacturers in this country was asked 
recently by a number of financiers whether he thought 
that the difference between one style of organization 
and another amounted to much providing the com- 
pany had an up-to-date plant properly located. His 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 63 

answer was, "If I had to choose now between aban- 
doning my present organization and burning down 
all of my plants which have cost me millions, I should 
choose the latter. My plants could be rebuilt in a 
short while with borrowed money, but I could hardly 
replace my organization in a generation." 

Modern engineering can almost be called an exact 
science; each year removes it further from guess 
work and from rule-of-thumb methods and estab- 
lishes* it more firmly upon the foundation of fixed 
principles. 

The writer feels that management is also destined * 
to become more of an art, and that many of the 
elements which are now believed to be outside the 
field of exact knowledge will soon be standardized, 
tabulated, accepted, and used, as are now many of 
the elements of engineering. Management will be 
studied as an art and will rest upon well recognized, 
clearly defined, and fixed principles instead of de- 
pending upon more or less hazy ideas received from 
a limited observation of the few organizations with 
which the individual may have come in contact. 
There will, of course, be various successful types, 
and the application of the underlying principles 
must be modified to suit each particular case. The 
writer has already indicated that he thinks the first 
object in management is to unite high wages with 
a low labor cost. He believes that this object can 
be most easily attained by the application of the 
following principles: 

(a) A Large Daily Task. — Each man in the 
establishment, high or low, should daily have a 



64 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

clearly defined task laid out before him. This task 
should not in the least degree be vague nor indefinite, 
but should be circumscribed carefully and completely, 
and should not be easy to accomplish. 

(b) Standard Conditions. — Each man's task 
should call for a full day's work, and at the same 
time the workman should be given such standard- 
ized conditions and appliances as will enable him to 
accomplish his task with certainty. 

(c) High Pay for Success. — He should be sure 
of large pay when he accomplishes his task. 

(d) Loss in Case of Failure. — When he fails 
he should be sure that sooner or later he will be the 
loser by it. 

When an establishment has reached an advanced 
state of organization, in many cases a fifth element 
should be added, namely: the task should be made 
so difficult that it can only be accomplished by a 
first-class man.' , 

There is nothing new nor startling about any of 
these principles and yet it will be difficult to find a 
shop in which they are not daily violated over and 
over again. They call, however, for a greater depar- 
ture from the ordinary types of organization than 
would at first appear. In the case, for instance, of 
a machine shop doing miscellaneous work, in order 
to assign daily to each man a carefully measured 
task, a special planning department is required to 
lay out all of the work at least one day ahead. All 
orders must be given to the men in detail in writing; 
and in order to lay out the next day's work and plan 
the entire progress of work through the shop, daily 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 65 

returns must be made by the men to the planning 
department in writing, showing just what has been 
done. Before each casting or forging arrives in the 
shop the exact route which it is to take from machine 
to machine should be laid out. An instruction card 
for each operation must be written out stating in 
detail just how each operation on every piece of 
work is to be done and the time required to do it, 
the drawing number, any special tools, jigs, or 
appliances required, etc. Before the four principles 
above referred to can be successfully applied it is 
also necessary in most shops to make important 
physical changes. All of the small details in the 
shop, which are usually regarded as of little impor- 
tance and are left to be regulated according to the 
individual taste of the workman, or, at best, of the 
foreman, must be thoroughly and carefully standard- 
ized; such details, for instance, as the care and 
tightening of the belts; the exact shape and quality 
of each cutting tool; the establishment of a complete 
tool room from which properly ground tools, as well 
as jigs, templets, drawings, etc., are issued under a 
good check system, etc.; and as a matter of impor- 
tance (in fact, as the foundation of scientific man- 
agement) an accurate study of unit times must be 
made by one or more men connected with the plan- 
ning department, and each machine tool must be 
standardized and a table or slide rule constructed 
for it showing how to run it to the best advantage. 
At first view the running of a planning department, 
together with the other innovations, would appear 
to involve a large amount of additional work and 



66 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

expense, and the most natural question would be is 
whether the increased efficiency of the shop more 
than offsets this outlay? It must be borne in mind, 
however, that, with the exception of the study of 
unit times, there is hardly a single item of work done 
in the planning department which is not already 
being done in the shop. Establishing a planning 
N department merely concentrates the planning and 
much other brainwork in a few men especially 
fitted for their task and trained in their especial 
lines, instead of having it done, as heretofore, in 
most cases by high priced mechanics, well fitted to 
work at their trades, but poorly trained for work 
more or less clerical in its nature. 

There is a close analogy between the methods of 
modern engineering and this type of management. 
Engineering now centers in the drafting room as 
modern management does in the planning depart- 
ment. The new style engineering has all the appear- 
ance of complication and extravagance, with its mul- 
titude of drawings; the amount of study and work 
which is put into each detail; and its corps of drafts- 
men, all of whom would be sneered at by the old 
engineer as " non-producers." For the same reason, 
modern management, with its minute time study and 
a managing department in which each operation is 
carefully planned, with its many written orders and 
its apparent red tape, looks like a waste of money; 
while the ordinary management in which the plan- 
ning is mainly done by the workmen themselves, 
with the help of one or two foremen, seems simple 
and economical in the extreme. 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 67 

The writer, however, while still a young man, had 
all lingering doubt as to the value of a drafting 
room dispelled by seeing the chief engineer, the fore- 
man of the machine shop, the foreman of the 
foundry, and one or two workmen, in one of our 
large and successful engineering establishments of 
the old school, stand over the cylinder of an engine 
which was being built, with chalk and dividers, and 
discuss for more than an hour the proper size and 
location of the studs for fastening on the cylinder 
head. This was simplicity, but not economy. About 
the same time he became thoroughly convinced of 
the necessity and economy of a planning department 
with time study, and with written instruction cards 
and returns. He saw over and over again a work- 
man shut down his machine and hunt up the fore- 
man to inquire, perhaps, what work to put into his 
machine next, and then chase around the shop to 
find it or to have a special tool or templet looked 
up or made. He saw workmen carefully nursing 
their jobs by the hour and doing next to nothing to 
avoid making a record, and he was even more forci- 
bly convinced of the necessity for a change while he 
was still working as a machinist by being ordered 
by the other men to slow down to half speed under 
penalty of being thrown over the fence. 

No one now doubts the economy of the drafting 
room, and the writer predicts that in a very few years 
from now no one will doubt the economy and neces- 
sity of the study of unit times and of the planning 
department. 

Another point of analogy between modern engi- 



68 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

neering and modern management lies in the fact 
that modern engineering proceeds with comparative 
certainty to the design and construction of a machine 
or structure of the maximum efficiency with the 
minimum weight and cost of materials, while the 
old style engineering at best only approximated these 
results and then only after a series of breakdowns, 
involving the practical reconstruction of the machine 
and the lapse of a long period of time. The ordinary 
system of management, owing to the lack of exact 
information and precise methods, can only approxi- 
mate to the desired standard of high wages accom- 
panied by low labor cost and then only slowly, with 
marked irregularity in results, with continued oppo- 
sition, and, in many cases, with danger from strikes. 
Modern management, on the other hand, proceeds 
slowly at first, but with directness and precision, 
step by step, and, after the first few object lessons, 
almost without opposition on the part of the men, to 
high wages and low labor cost; and as is of great 
importance, it assigns wages to the men which are 
uniformly fair. They are not demoralized, and their 
sense of justice offended by receiving wages which 
are sometimes too low and at other times entirely 
too high. 

One of the marked advantages of scientific man- 
agement lies in its freedom from strikes. The 
writer has never been opposed by a strike, although 
he has been engaged for a great part of his time since 
1883 in introducing this type of management in 
different parts of the country and in a great variety 
of industries. The only case of which the writer 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 69 

can think in which a strike under this system might 
be unavoidable would be that in which most of the 
employes were members of a labor union, and of 
a union whose rules were so inflexible and whose 
members were so stubborn that they were unwilling 
to try any other system, even though it assured them 
larger wages than their own. The writer has seen, 
however, several times after the introduction of this 
system, the members of labor unions who were work- 
ing -under it leave the union in large numbers because 
they found that they could do better under the oper- 
ation of the system than under the laws of the union. 

There is no question that the average individual 
accomplishes the most when he either gives himself, 
or some one else assigns him, a definite task, namely, 
a given amount of work which he must do within a 
given time; and the more elementary the mind and 
character of the individual the more necessary does 
it become that each task shall extend over a short 
period of time only. No school teacher would think 
of telling children in a general way to study a certain 
book or subject. It is practically universal to assign 
each day a definite lesson beginning on one specified 
page and line and ending on another; and the best 
progress is made when the conditions are such that 
a definite study hour or period can be assigned in 
which the lesson must be learned. Most of us 
remain, through a great part of our lives, in this 
respect, grown-up children, and do our best only 
under pressure of a task of comparatively short 
duration. 

Another and perhaps equally great advantage 



70 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

of assigning a daily task as against ordinary piece 
work lies in the fact that the success of a good work- 
man or the failure of a poor one is thereby daily and 
prominently called to the attention of the manage- 
ment. Many a poor workman might be willing to 
go along in a slipshod way under ordinary piece 
work, careless as to whether he fell off a little in his 
output or not. Very few of them, however, would 
be willing to record a daily failure to accomplish 
their task even if they were allowed to do so by 
their foreman; and also since on ordinary piece 
work the price alone is specified without limiting the 
time which the job is to take, a quite large falling off 
in output can in many cases occur without coming 
to the attention of the management at all. It is 
for these reasons that the writer has above indicated 
"a large daily task" for each man as the first of 
four principles which should be included in the best 
type of management. 

It is evident, however, that it is useless to assign 
a task unless at the same time adequate measures 
are taken to enforce its accomplishment. As 'Arte- 
mus Ward says, "I can call the spirits from the windy 
deep, but damn 'em they won't come!" It is to 
compel the completion of the daily task then that 
two of the other principles are required, namely, 
"high pay for success" and "loss in case of failure." 
The advantage of Mr. H. L. Gantt's system of "task 
work with a bonus," and the writer's "differential 
rate piece work" over the other systems lies in the 
fact that with each of these the men automatically 
and daily receive either an extra reward in case of 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 71 

complete success, or a distinct loss in case they fall 
off even a little. 

The four principles above referred to can be suc- 
cessfully applied either under day work, piece work, 
task work with a bonus, or differential rate piece 
work, and each of these systems has its own especial 
conditions under which it is to be preferred to either 
of the other three. In no case, however, should an 
attempt be made to apply these principles unless 
accurate and thorough time study has previously 
been made of every item entering into the day's task. 

They should be applied under day work only when 
a number of miscellaneous jobs have to be done day 
after day, none of which can occupy the entire time 
of a man throughout the whole of a day and when the 
time required to do each of these small jobs is likely 
to vary somewhat each day. In this case a number 
of these jobs can be grouped into a daily task which 
should be assigned, if practicable, to one man, pos- 
sibly even to two or three, but rarely to a gang of 
men of any size. To illustrate: In a small boiler 
house in which there is no storage room for coal, the 
work of wheeling the coal to the fireman, wheeling 
out the ashes, helping clean fires and keeping the 
boiler room and the outside of the boilers clean can 
be made into the daily task for a man, and if these 
items do not sum up into a full day's work, on the 
average, other duties can be added until a proper 
task is assured. Or, the various details of sweeping, 
cleaning, and keeping a certain section of a shop floor 
windows, machines, etc., in order can be united to 
form a task. Or, in a small factory which turns out 



72 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

a uniform product and in uniform quantities day 
after day, supplying raw materials to certain parts 
of the factory and removing finished product from 
others may be coupled with other definite duties to 
form a task. The task should call for a large day's 
work, and the man should be paid more than the usual 
day's pay so that the position will be sought for by 
first-class, ambitious men. Clerical work can very 
properly be done by the task in this way, although 
when there is enough of it, piece work at so much 
per entry is to be preferred. 

In all cases a clear cut, definite inspection of the 
task is desirable at least once a day and sometimes 
twice. When a shop is not running at night, a good 
time for this inspection is at seven o'clock in the 
morning, for instance. The inspector should daily 
sign a printed card, stating that he has inspected 

the work done by , and enumerating the 

various items of the task. The card should state 
that the workman has satisfactorily performed his 
task, " except the following items," which should be 
enumerated in detail. 
# When men are working on task work by the day 
they should be made to start to work at the regular 
starting hour. They should, however, have no 
regular time for leaving. As soon as the task is 
finished they should be allowed to go home; and, 
on the other hand, they should be made to stay at 
work until their task is done, even if it lasts into the 
night, no deduction being made for shorter hours nor 
extra pay allowed for overtime. It is both inhuman 
and unwise to ask a man, working on task work, to 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 73 

stay in the shop after his task is finished "to maintain 
the discipline of the shop," as is frequently done. 
It only tends to make men eye servants. 

An amusing instance of the value of task work with 
freedom to leave when the task is done was given 
the writer by his friend, Mr. Chas. D. Rogers, for 
many years superintendent of the American Screw 
Works, of Providence, R. I., one of the greatest 
mechanical geniuses and most resourceful managers 
that ihis country has produced, but a man who, owing 
to his great modesty, has never been fully appreciated 
outside of those who know him well. Mr. Rogers 
tried several modifications of day and piece work 
in an unsuccessful endeavor to get the children who 
were engaged in sorting over the very small screws to 
do a fair day's work. He finally met with great 
success by assigning to each child a fair day's task 
and allowing him to go home and play as soon as his 
task was done. Each child's playtime was his own 
and highly prized while the greater part of his wages 
went to his parents. 

Piece work embodying the task idea can be used to 
advantage when there is enough work of the same 
general character to keep a number of men busy 
regularly; such work, for instance, as the Bethlehem 
yard labor previously described, or the work of 
bicycle ball inspection referred to later on. In piece 
work of this class the task idea should always be 
maintained by keeping it clearly before each man 
that his average daily earnings must amount to a 
given high sum (as in the case of the Bethlehem 
laborers, $1.85 per day), and that failure to average 



74 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

this amount will surely result in his being laid off. 
It must be remembered that on plain piece work 
the less competent workmen will always bring what 
influence and pressure they can to cause the best 
men to slow down towards their level and that the 
task idea is needed to counteract this influence. 
Where the labor market is large enough to secure in 
a reasonable time enough strictly first-class men, the 
piece work rates should be fixed on such a basis that 
only a first-class man working at his best can earn 
the average amount called for. This figure should 
be, in the case of first-class men as stated above, 
from 30 per cent, to 100 per cent, beyond the wages 
usually paid. The task idea is emphasized with this 
style of piece work by two things — the high wages 
and the laying off, after a reasonable trial, of incom- 
petent men; and for the success of the system, the 
number of men employed on practically the same 
class of work should be large enough for the work- 
men quite often to have the object lesson of seeing 
men laid off for failing to earn high wages and others 
substituted in their places. 

There are comparatively few machine shops, or 
even manufacturing establishments, in which the 
work is so uniform in its nature as to employ enough 
men on the same grade of work and in sufficiently 
close contact to one another to render piece work 
preferable to the other systems. In the great ma- 
jority of cases the work is so miscellaneous in its 
nature as to call for the employment of workmen 
varying greatly in their natural ability and attain- 
ments, all the way, for instance, from the ordinary 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 73 

laborer, through the trained laborer, helper, rough 
machinist, fitter, machine hand, to the highly skilled 
special or all-round mechanic. And while in a large 
establishment there may be often enough men of 
the same grade to warrant the adoption of piece 
work with the task idea, yet, even in this case, they 
are generally so scattered in different parts of the 
shop that laying off one of their number for incom- 
petence does not reach the others with sufficient 
force- to impress them with the necessity of keeping 
up with their task. 

It is evident then that, in the great majority of 
cases, the four leading principles in management can 
be best applied through either task work with a 
bonus or the differential piece rate in spite of the 
slight additional clerical work and the increased diffi- 
culty in planning ahead incident to these systems 
of paying wages. Three of the principles of man- 
agement given above, namely, (a) a large daily task, 
(6) high pay for success, and (c) loss in case of fail- 
ure form the very essence of both of these systems 
and act as a daily stimulant for the men. The 
fourth principle of management is a necessary pre- 
liminary, since without having first thoroughly stand- 
ardized all of the conditions surrounding work, 
neither of these two plans can be successfully applied. 

In many cases the greatest good resulting from 
the application of these systems of paying wages is 
the indirect gain which comes from the enforced 
standardization of all details and conditions, large 
and small, surrounding the work. All of the ordi- 
nary systems can be and are almost always applied 



76 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

without adopting and maintaining thorough shop 
standards. But the task idea can not be carried out 
without them. • 

The differential rate piece work is rather simpler 
in its application than task work with bonus and is 
the more forceful of the two. It should be used 
wherever it is practicable, but in no case until after 
all the accompanying conditions have been perfected 
and completely standardized and a thorough time 
study has been made of all of the elements of the 
work. This system is particularly useful where 
the same kind of work is repeated day after day, 
and also whenever the maximum possible output is 
desired, which is almost always the case in the oper- 
ation of expensive machinery or of a plant occupy- 
ing valuable ground or a large building. It is more 
forceful than task work with a bonus because it not 
only pulls the man up from the top but pushes him 
equally hard from the bottom. Both of these sys- 
tems give the workman a large extra reward when 
he accomplishes his full task within the given time. 
With the differential rate, if for any reason he fails 
to do his full task, he not only loses the large extra 
premium which is paid for complete success, but in 
addition he suffers the direct loss of the piece price 
for each piece by which he falls short. Failure 
under the task with a bonus system involves a 
corresponding loss of the extra premium or bonus, 
but the workman, since he is paid a given price 
per hour, receives his ordinary day's pay in case 
of failure and suffers no additional loss beyond 
that of the extra premium whether he may have 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 77 

fallen short of the task to the extent of one piece 
or a dozen. 

In principle, these two systems appear to be almost 
identical, yet this small difference, the slightly milder 
nature of task work with a bonus, is sufficient to 
render it much more flexible and therefore applicable 
to a large number of cases in which the differential 
rate system cannot be used. Task work with a 
bonus was invented by Mr. H. L. Gantt, while he was 
assisting the writer in organizing the Bethlehem 
Steel Company. The possibilities of his system were 
immediately recognized by all of the leading men 
engaged on the work, and long before it would have 
been practicable to use the differential rate, work 
was started under this plan. It was successful from 
the start, and steadily grew in volume and in favor, 
and to-day is more extensively used than ever 
before. 

Mr. Gantt's system is especially useful during 
the difficult and delicate period of transition from 
the slow pace of ordinary day work to the high speed 
which is the leading characteristic of good manage- 
ment. During this period of transition in the past, 
a time was always reached when a sudden long leap 
was taken from improved day work to some form of 
piece work; and in making this jump many good 
men inevitably fell and were lost from the proces- 
sion. Mr. Gantt's system bridges over this difficult 
stretch and enables the workman to go smoothly 
and with gradually accelerated speed from the slower 
pace of improved day work to the high speed of the 
new system. 



78 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

It does not appear that Mr. Gantt has recognized 
the full advantages to be derived through the proper 
application of his system during this period of tran- 
sition, at any rate he has failed to point them out 
in his papers and to call the attention to the best 
method of applying his plan in such cases. 

No workman can be expected to do a piece of work 
the first time as fast as he will later. It should also 
be recognized that it takes a certain time for men 
who have worked at the ordinary slow rate of speed 
to change to high speed. Mr. Gantt's plan can be 
adapted to meet both of these conditions by allow- 
ing the workman to take a longer time to do the job 
at first and yet earn his bonus; and later compelling 
him to finish the job in the quickest time in order to 
get the premium. In all cases it is of the utmost 
importance that each instruction card should state 
the quickest time in which the workman will ultimately 
be called upon to do the work. There will then be 
no temptation for the man to soldier since he will 
see that the management know accurately how fast 
the work can be done. 

There is also a large class of work in addition to 
that of the period of transition to which task work 
with a bonus is especially adapted. The higher 
pressure of the differential rate is the stimulant 
required by the workman to maintain a high rate 
of speed and secure high wages while he has the 
steady swing that belongs to work which is repeated 
over and over again. When, however, the work is of 
such variety that each day presents an entirely new 
task, the pressure of the differential rate is some- 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 79 

times too severe. The chances of failing to quite 
reach the task are greater in this class of work than 
in routine work; and in many such cases it is better, 
owing to the increased difficulties, that the workman 
should feel sure at least of his regular day's rate, 
which is secured him by Mr. Gantt's system in 
case he falls short of the full task. There is still 
another case of quite frequent occurrence in which 
the flexibility of Mr. Gantt's plan makes it the 
most "desirable. In many establishments, particularly 
those doing an engineering business of considerable 
variety or engaged in constructing and erecting 
miscellaneous machinery, it is necessary to employ 
continuously a number of especially skilful and high- 
priced mechanics. The particular work for which 
these men are wanted comes, however, in many 
cases, at irregular intervals, and there are frequently 
quite long waits between their especial jobs. Dur- 
ing such periods these men must be provided with 
work which is ordinarily done by less efficient, lower- 
priced men, and if a proper piece price has been 
fixed on this work it would naturally be a price 
suited to the less skilful men, and therefore too low 
for the men in question. The alternative is presented 
of trying to compel these especially skilled men to 
work for a lower price than they should receive, or 
of fixing a special higher piece price for the work. 
Fixing two prices for the same piece of work, one for 
the man who usually does it and a higher price for 
the higher grade man, always causes the greatest 
feeling of injustice and dissatisfaction in the man who 
is discriminated against. With Mr. Gantt's plan, 



80 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

the less skilled workman would recognize the jus- 
tice of paying his more experienced companion regu- 
larly a higher rate of wages by the day, yet when 
they were both working on the same kind of work 
each man would receive the same extra bonus for 
doing the full day's task. Thus, with Mr. Gantt's 
system, the total day's pay of the higher classed 
man would be greater than that of the less skilled 
man, even when on the same work, and the latter 
would not begrudge it to him. We may say that the 
difference is one of sentiment, yet sentiment plays 
an important part in all of our lives; and sentiment 
is particularly strong in the workman when he 
believes a direct injustice is being done him. 

Mr. James M. Dodge, the distinguished Past 
President of The American Society of Mechanical 
Engineers, has invented an ingenious system of 
piece work which is adapted to meet this very case, 
and which has especial advantages not possessed 
by any of the other plans. 

It is clear, then, that in carrying out the task idea 
after the required knowledge has been obtained 
through a study of unit times, each of the four sys- 
tems, (a) day work, (6) straight piece work, (c) task 
work with a bonus, and (d) differential piece work, 
has its especial field of usefulness, and that in every 
large establishment doing a variety of work all four 
of these plans can and should be used at the same 
time. Three of these systems were in use at the 
Bethlehem Steel Company when the writer left there, 
and the fourth would have soon been started if he 
had remained. 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 81 

Before leaving this part of the book which has 
been devoted to pointing out the value of the daily 
task in management, it would seem desirable to 
give an illustration of the value of the differential 
rate piece work and also of the desirability of making 
each task as simple and short as practicable. 

The writer quotes as follows from a paper entitled 
"A Piece Rate System," read by him before The 
American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 1895: 

"The first case in which a differential rate was 
applied during the year 1884, furnishes a good 
illustration of what can be accomplished by it. A 
standard steel forging, many thousands of which 
are used each year, had for several years been turned 
at the rate of from four to five per day under the 
ordinary system of piece work, 50 cents per piece 
being the price paid for the work. After analyzing 
the job, and determining the shortest time required 
to do each of the elementary operations of which it 
was composed, and then summing up the total, the 
writer became convinced that it was possible to turn 
ten pieces a day. To finish the forgings at this rate, 
however, the machinists were obliged to work at 
their maximum pace from morning to night, and the 
lathes were run as fast as the tools would allow, 
and under a heavy feed. Ordinary tempered tools 
1 inch by 1| inch, made of carbon tool steel, were 
used for this work. 

"It will be appreciated that this was a big day's 
work, both for men and machines, when it is under- 
stood that it involved removing, with a single 16-inch 
lathe, having two saddles, an average of more than 



82 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 



800 lbs. of steel chips in ten hours. In place of the 
50 cent rate, that they had been paid before, the men 
were given 35 cents per piece when they turned them 
at the speed of 10 per day; and when they produced 
less than ten they received only 25 cents per piece. 

"It took considerable trouble to induce the men 
to turn at this high speed, since they did not at first 
fully appreciate that it was the intention of the firm 
to allow them to earn permanently at the rate of 
$3.50 per day. But from the day they first turned 
ten pieces to the present time, a period of more than 
ten years, the men who understood their work have 
scarcely failed a single day to turn at this rate. 
Throughout that time until the beginning of the 
recent fall in the scale of wages throughout the 
country, the rate was not cut. 

"During this whole period, the competitors of the 
company never succeeded in averaging over half of 
this production per lathe, although they knew and 
even saw what was being done at Midvale. They, 
however, did not allow their men to earn from over 
$2.00 to $2.50 per day, and so never even approached 
the maximum output. 

"The following table will show the economy of 
paying high wages under the differential rate in 
doing the above job: 

"COST OF PRODUCTION PER LATHE PER DAY 

Ordinary System of Piece Work Differential Rate System 



Man's wages $2.50 

Machine cost 3.37 

Total cost per day 5.87 

5 pieces produced; 

Cost per piece $1.17 



Man's wages $3.50 

Machine cost 3.37 

Total cost per day 6.87 

10 pieces produced; 

Cost per piece $0.69 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 83 

" The above result was mostly though not entirely- 
due to the differential rate. The superior system 
of managing all of the small details of the shop 
counted for considerable." 

The exceedingly dull times that began in July, 
1893, and were accompanied by a great fall in prices, 
rendered it necessary to lower the wages of machinists 
throughout the country. The wages of the men in 
the Midvale Steel Works were reduced at this time, 
and. the change was accepted by them as fair and 
just. 

Throughout the works, however, the principle of 
the differential rate was maintained, and was, and 
is still, fully appreciated by both the management 
and men. Through some error at the time of the 
general reduction of wages in 1893, the differential 
rate on the particular job above referred to was 
removed, and a straight piece work rate of 25 cents 
per piece was substituted for it. The result of 
abandoning the differential proved to be the best 
possible demonstration of its value. Under straight 
piece work, the output immediately fell to between 
six and eight pieces per day, and remained at this 
figure for several years, although under the differ- 
ential rate it had held throughout a long term of 
years steadily at ten per day. 

When work is to be repeated many times, the time 
study should be minute and exact. Each job should 
be carefully subdivided into its elementary opera- 
tions, and each of these unit times should receive the 
most thorough time study. In fixing the times for 
the tasks, and the piece work rates on jobs of this 



84 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

class, the job should be subdivided into a number 
of divisions, and a separate time and price assigned 
to each division rather than to assign a single time 
and price for the whole job. This should be done 
for several reasons, the most important of which is 
that the average workman, in order to maintain a 
rapid pace, should be given the opportunity of meas- 
uring his performance against the task set him at 
frequent intervals. Many men are incapable of 
looking very far ahead, but if they see a definite 
opportunity of earning so many cents by working 
hard for so many minutes, they will avail themselves 
of it. 

As an illustration, the steel tires used on car wheels 
and locomotives were originally turned in the Mid- 
vale Steel Works on piece work, a single piece-work 
rate being paid for all of the work which could be 
done on a tire at a single setting. A fixed price was 
paid for this work, whether there was much or little 
metal to be removed, and on the average this price 
was fair to the men. The apparent advantage of 
fixing a fair average rate was, that it made rate- 
fixing exceedingly simple, and saved clerk work in 
the time, cost and record keeping. 

A careful time study, however, convinced the 
writer that for the reasons given above most of the 
men failed to do their best. In place of the single 
rate and time for all of the work done at a setting, 
the writer subdivided tire-turning into a number of 
short operations, and fixed a proper time and price, 
varying for each small job, according to the amount 
of metal to be removed, and the hardness and 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 85 

diameter of the tire. The effect of this subdivision 
was to increase the output, with the same men, 
methods, and machines, at least thirty-three per 
cent. 

As an illustration of the minuteness of this sub- 
division, an instruction card similar to the one used 
is reproduced in Figure 1 on the next page. (This 
card was about 7 inches long by 4 inches wide.) 

The cost of the additional clerk work involved in 
this- change was so insignificant that it practically 
did not affect the problem. This principle of short 
tasks in tire turning was introduced by the writer in 
the Midvale Steel Works in 1883 and is still in full 
use there, having survived the test of over twenty 
years' trial with a change of management. 

In another establishment a differential rate was 
applied to tire turning, with operations subdivided 
in this way, by adding fifteen per cent, to the pay 
of each tire turner whenever his daily or weekly 
piece work earnings passed a given figure. 

Another illustration of the application of this 
principle of measuring a man's performance against 
a given task at frequent intervals to an entirely dif- 
ferent line of work may be of interest. For this 
purpose the writer chooses the manufacture of bicycle 
balls in the works of the Symonds Rolling Machine 
Company, in Fitchburg, Mass. All of the work 
done in this factory was subjected to an accurate 
time study, and then was changed from day to piece 
work, through the assistance of functional foreman- 
ship, etc. The particular operation to be described, 
however, is that of inspecting bicycle balls before 



86 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 



Machine shop 

Order for Tires. 

Do work on Tire No 

As follows and per blue print 





Tem- 
plet 


Size to 

be cut 

to 


Depth 
of cut 


Driving 
belt 


Feed 


Rate 


Time this 
operation 
should take 


Surface to be ma- 
















Set tire on machine 
















Rough face front edge 
Finish face front edge 












































Finish bore front. . . 
















Rough face front I. 
S.C 
































Rough bore front I. 
S.F 
















Rough face back edge 
Finish face back edge 
Finish bore back . . . 












































Rough bore back . . . 
















Rough face back I. 
S.F 
































Cut recess 
















































































Clean fillet of flange. 

Remove tire from 

machine and clean 















































Figure 1. — Tire-Turning Instruction Card 

they were finally boxed for shipment. Many millions 
of these balls were inspected annually. When the 
writer undertook to systematize this work, the fac- 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 87 

tory had been running for eight or ten years on ordi- 
nary day work, so that the various employes were 
"old hands," and skilled at their jobs. The work of 
inspection was done entirely by girls — about one 
hundred and twenty being employed at it — all on 
day work. 

This work consisted briefly in placing a row of 
small polished steel balls on the back of the left hand, 
in the crease between two of the fingers pressed 
together, and while they were rolled over and over, 
with the aid of a magnet held in the right hand, 
they were minutely examined in a strong light, and 
the defective balls picked out and thrown into 
especial boxes. Four kinds of defects were looked 
for — dented, soft, scratched, and fire cracked — 
and they were mostly so minute as to be invisible to 
an eye not especially trained to this work. It 
required the closest attention and concentration. 
The girls had worked on day work for years, ten 
and one-half hours per day, with a Saturday half- 
holiday. 

The first move before in any way stimulating 
them toward a larger output was to insure against 
a falling off in quality. This was accomplished 
through over-inspection. Four of the most trust- 
worthy girls were given each a lot of balls which 
had been examined the day before by one of the 
regular inspectors. The number identifying the lot 
having been changed by the foreman so that none of 
the over-inspectors knew whose work they were 
examining. In addition, one of the lots inspected 
by the four over-inspectors was examined on the 



88 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

following day by the chief inspector, selected on 
account of her accuracy and integrity. 

An effective expedient was adopted for checking 
the honesty and accuracy of the over-inspection. 
Every two or three days a lot of balls was especially 
prepared by the foreman, who counted out a definite 
number of perfect balls, and added a recorded num- 
ber of defective balls of each kind. The inspectors 
had no means of distinguishing this lot from the regu- 
lar commercial lots. And in this way all temptation 
to slight their work or make false returns was 
removed. 

After insuring in this way against deterioration 
in quality, effective means were at once adopted to 
increase the output. Improved day work was sub- 
stituted for the old slipshod method. An accurate 
daily record, both as to quantity and quality, was 
kept for each inspector. In a comparatively short 
time this enabled the foreman to stir the ambition 
of all the inspectors by increasing the wages of those 
who turned out a large quantity and good quality, 
at the same time lowering the pay of those who fell 
short, and discharging others who proved to be in- 
corrigibly slow or careless. An accurate time study 
was made through the use of a stop watch and record 
blanks, to determine how fast each kind of inspec- 
tion should be done. This showed that the girls 
spent a considerable part of their time in partial 
idleness, talking and half working, or in actually 
doing nothing. 

Talking while at work was stopped by seating 
them far apart. The hours of work were shortened 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 89 

from 10 J per day, first to 9 J, and latter to 8 J; a 
Saturday half holiday being given them even with 
the shorter hours. Two recesses of ten minutes 
each were given them, in the middle of the morning 
and afternoon, during which they were expected to 
leave their seats, and were allowed to talk. 

The shorter hours and improved conditions made 
it possible for the girls to really work steadily, in- 
stead of pretending to do so. Piece work was then 
introduced, a differential rate being paid, not for an 
increase in output, but for greater accuracy in the 
inspection; the lots inspected by the over-inspectors 
forming the basis for the payment of the differential. 
The work of each girl was measured every hour, and 
they were all informed whether they were keeping 
up with their tasks, or how far they had fallen short; 
and an assistant was sent by the foreman to en- 
courage those who were falling behind, and help 
them to catch up. 

The principle of measuring the performance of 
each workman against a standard at frequent in- 
tervals, of keeping them informed as to their pro- 
gress, and of sending an assistant to help those who 
were falling down, was carried out throughout the 
works, and proved to be most useful. 

The final results of the improved system in the 
inspecting department were as follows: 

(a) Thirty-five girls did the work formerly done 
by one hundred and twenty. 

(b) The girls averaged from $6.50 to $9.00 per 
week instead of $3.50 to $4.50, as formerly. 

(c) They worked only 8J hours per day, with 



90 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

Saturday a half-holiday, while they had formerly 
worked 10§ hours per day. 

(d) An accurate comparison of the balls which 
were inspected under the old system of day work with 
those done under piece work, with over-inspection, 
showed that, in spite of the large increase in output 
per girl, there were 58 per cent, more defective balls 
left in the product as sold under day work than under 
piece work. In other words, the accuracy of in- 
spection under piece work was one-third greater 
than that under day work. 

That thirty-five girls were able to do the work 
which formerly required about one hundred and 
twenty is due, not only to the improvement in the 
work of each girl, owing to better methods, but to 
the weeding out of the lazy and unpromising can- 
didates, and the substitution of more ambitious 
individuals. 

A more interesting illustration of the effect of 
the improved conditions and treatment is shown in 
the following comparison. Records were kept of the 
work of ten girls, all "old hands," and good inspec- 
tors, and the improvement made by these skilled 
hands is undoubtedly entirely due to better manage- 
ment. All of these girls throughout the period of 
comparison were engaged on the same kind of work, 
viz.: inspecting bicycle balls, three-sixteenths of an 
inch in diameter. 

The work of organization began in March, and 
although the records for the first three months were 
not entirely clear, the increased output due to better 
day work amounted undoubtedly to about 33 per 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 91 

cent. The increase per day from June on day work, 
to July on piece work, the hours each month being 
10J per day, was 37 per cent. This increase was 
due to the introduction of piece work. The increase 
per day from July to August (the length of working 
days in July being 10J hours, and in August 9J 
hours, both months piece work) was 33 per cent. 

The increase from August to September (the 
length of working day in August being 9J hours, 
and in September 8J hours) was 0.08 per cent. 
This means that the girls did practically the same 
amount of work per day in September, in 8 J hours, 
that they did in August in 9| hours. 

To summarize: the same ten girls did on an aver- 
age each day in September, on piece work, when 
only working 8J hours per day, 2.42 times as much, 
or nearly two and one-half times as much, in a day 
(not per hour, the increase per hour was of course 
much greater) as they had done when working on 
day work in March with a working day of 10 J hours. 
They earned $6.50 to $9.00 per week on piece work, 
while they had only earned $3.50 to $4.50 on day 
work. The accuracy of inspection under piece work 
was one-third greater than under day work. 

The time study for this work was done by my 
friend, Sanford E. Thompson, C. E., who also had 
the actual management of the girls throughout the 
period of transition. At this time Mr. H. L. Gantt 
was general superintendent of the company, and the 
work of systematizing was under the general direc- 
tion of the writer. 

It is, of course, evident that the nature of the 



92 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

organizations required to manage different types of 
business must vary to an enormous extent, from the 
simple tonnage works (with its uniform product, 
which is best managed by a single strong man who 
carries all of the details in his head and who, with a 
few comparatively cheap assistants, pushes the en- 
terprise through to success) to the large machine 
works, doing a miscellaneous business, with its in- 
tricate organization, in which the work of any one 
man necessarily counts for but little. 

It is this great difference in the type of the organi- 
zation required that so frequently renders managers 
who have been eminently successful in one line utter 
failures when they undertake the direction of works 
of a different kind. This is particularly true of 
men successful in tonnage work who are placed in 
charge of shops involving much greater detail. 

In selecting an organization for illustration, it 
would seem best to choose one of the most elaborate. 
The manner in which this can be simplified to suit 
a less intricate case will readily suggest itself to any 
one interested in the subject. One of the most dif- 
ficult works to organize is that of a large engineer- 
ing establishment building miscellaneous machinery, 
and the writer has therefore chosen this for de- 
scription. 

Practically all of the shops of this class are or- 
ganized upon what may be called the military plan. 
The orders from the general are transmitted through 
the colonels, majors, captains, lieutenants and non- 
commissioned officers to the men. In the same way 
the orders in industrial establishments go from the 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 93 

manager through superintendents, foremen of shops, 
assistant foremen and gang bosses to the men. In 
an establishment of this kind the duties of the fore- 
men, gang bosses, etc., are so varied, and call for 
an amount of special information coupled with 
such a variety of natural ability, that only men of 
unusual qualities to start with, and who have had 
years of special training, can perform them in a 
satisfactory manner. It is because of the difficulty 
— almost the impossibility — of getting suitable fore- 
men and gang bosses, more than for any other rea- 
son, that we so seldom hear of a miscellaneous 
machine works starting in on a large scale and meet- 
ing with much, if any, success for the first few years. 
This difficulty is not fully realized by the managers 
of the old well established companies, since their 
superintendents and assistants have grown up with 
the business, and have been gradually worked into 
and fitted for their especial duties through years of 
training and the process of natural selection. Even 
in these establishments, however, this difficulty has 
impressed itself upon the managers so forcibly that 
most of them have of late years spent thousands of 
dollars in re-grouping their machine tools for the 
purpose of making their foremanship more effective. 
The planers have been placed in one group, slotters 
in another, lathes in another, etc., so as to demand a 
smaller range of experience and less diversity of 
knowledge from their respective foremen. 

For an establishment, then, of this kind, starting 
up on a large scale, it may be said to be an impos- 
sibility to get suitable superintendents and foremen. 



94 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

The writer found this difficulty at first to be an 
almost insurmountable obstacle to his work in 
organizing manufacturing establishments; and after 
years of experience, overcoming the opposition of 
the heads of departments and the foremen and gang 
bosses, and training them to their new duties, still 
remains the greatest problem in organization. The 
writer has had comparatively little trouble in 
inducing workmen to change their ways and to 
increase their speed, providing the proper object 
lessons are presented to them, and time enough is 
allowed for these to produce their effect. It is rarely 
the case, however, that superintendents and fore- 
men can find any reasons for changing their methods, 
which, as far as they can see, have been successful. 
And having, as a rule, obtained their positions owing 
to their unusual force of character, and being ac- 
customed daily to rule other men, their opposition 
is generally effective. 

In the writer's experience, almost all shops are 
under-officered. Invariably the number of leading 
men employed is not sufficient to do the work eco- 
nomically. Under the military type of organiza- 
tion, the foreman is held responsible for the successful 
running of the entire shop, and when we measure 
his duties by the standard of the four leading prin- 
ciples of management above referred to, it becomes 
apparent that in his case these conditions are as far 
as possible from being fulfilled. His duties may be 
briefly enumerated in the following way. He must 
lay out the work for the whole shop, see that each 
piece of work goes in the proper order to the right 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 95 

machine, and that the man at the machine knows 
just what is to be done and how he is to do it. He 
must see that the work is not slighted, and that it 
is done fast, and all the while he must look ahead a 
month or so, either to provide more men to do the 
work or more work for the men to do. He must con- 
stantly discipline the men and readjust their wages, 
and in addition to this must fix piece work prices 
and supervise the timekeeping. 

The first of the four leading principles in manage- 
ment calls for a clearly defined and circumscribed 
task. Evidently the foreman's duties are in no 
way clearly circumscribed. It is left each day en- 
tirely to his judgment what small part of the mass 
of duties before him it is most important for him to 
attend to, and he staggers along under this fraction 
of the work for which he is responsible, leaving the 
balance to be done in many cases as the gang bosses 
and workmen see fit. The second principle calls for 
such conditions that the daily task can always be 
accomplished. The conditions in his case are always 
such that it is impossible for him to do it all, and he 
never even makes a pretence of fulfilling his entire 
task. The third and fourth principles call for high 
pay in case the task is successfully done, and low 
pay in case of failure. The failure to realize the 
first two conditions, however, renders the appli- 
cation of the last two out of the question. 

The foreman usually endeavors to lighten his 
burdens by delegating his duties to the various 
assistant foremen or gang bosses in charge of lathes, 
planers, milling machines, vise work, etc. Each of 



96 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

these men is then called upon to perform duties of 
almost as great variety as those of the foreman him- 
self. The difncuhy in obtaining in one man the 
variety of special information and the different men- 
tal and moral qualities necessary to perform all of 
the duties demanded of those men has been clearly 
summarized in the following list of the nine qualities 
which go to make up a well rounded man: 

Brains. 

Education. 

Special or technical knowledge; manual dexterity 
or strength. 

Tact. 

Energy. 

Grit. " 

Honesty. . 

Judgment or common sense and 

Good health. 

Plenty of men who possess only three of the above 
qualities can be hired at any time for laborers' wages. 
Add four of these qualities together and you get a 
higher priced man. The man combining five of 
these qualities begins to be hard to find, and those 
with six, seven, and eight are almost impossible to 
get. Having this fact in mind, let us go over the 
duties which a gang boss in charge, say, of lathes or 
planers, is called upon to perform, and note the 
knowledge and qualities which they call for. 

First. He must be a good machinist — and this 
alone calls for years of special training, and limits 
the choice to a comparatively small class of men. 

Second. He must be able to read drawings readily, 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 97 

and have sufficient imagination to see the work in 
its finished state clearly before him. This calls for 
at least a certain amount of brains and education. 

Third. He must plan ahead and see that the right 
jigs, clamps, and appliances, as well as proper cut- 
ting tools, are on hand, and are used to set the work 
correctly in the machine and cut the metal at the 
right speed and feed. This calls for the ability to 
concentrate the mind upon a multitude of small 
details, and take pains with little, uninteresting 
things. 

Fourth. He must see that each man keeps his 
machine clean and in good order. This calls for 
the example of a man who is naturally neat and 
orderly himself. 

Fifth. He must see that each man turns out work 
of the proper quality. This calls for the conserva- 
tive judgment and the honesty which are the qual- 
ities of a good inspector. 

Sixth. He must see that the men under him work 
steadily and fast. To accomplish this he should 
himself be a hustler, a man of energy, ready to pitch 
in and infuse life into his men by working faster than 
they do, and this quality is rarely combined with 
the painstaking care, the neatness and the conserva- 
tive judgment demanded as the third, fourth, and 
fifth requirements of a gang boss. 

Seventh. He must constantly look ahead over the 
whole field of work and see that the parts go to the 
machines in their proper sequence, and that the right 
job gets to each machine. 

Eighth. He must, at least in a general way, super- 



98 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

vise the timekeeping and fix piece work rates. Both 
the seventh and eighth duties call for a certain 
amount of clerical work and ability, and this class of 
work is almost always repugnant to the man suited 
to active executive work, and difficult for him to do; 
and the rate-fixing alone requires the whole time and 
careful study of a man especially suited to its minute 
detail. 

Ninth. He must discipline the men under him, 
and readjust their wages; and these duties call for 
judgment, tact, and judicial fairness. 

It is evident, then, that the duties which the ordi- 
nary gang boss is called upon to perform would de- 
mand of him a large proportion of the nine attributes 
mentioned above; and if such a man could be found 
he should be made manager or superintendent of a 
works instead of gang boss. However, bearing in 
mind the fact that plenty of men can be had who 
combine four or five of these attributes, it becomes 
evident that the work of management should be so 
subdivided that the various positions can be filled 
by men of this caliber, and a great part of the art of 
management undoubtedly lies in planning the work 
in this way. This can, in the judgment of the writer, 
be best accomplished by abandoning the military type 
of organization and introducing two broad and 
sweeping changes in the art of management: 

(a) As far as possible the workmen, as well as the 
gang bosses and foremen, should be entirely relieved 
of the work of planning, and of all work which is 
more or less clerical in its nature. All possible brain 
work should be removed from the shop and centered 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 99 

in the planning or laying-out department, leaving 
for the foremen and gang bosses work strictly execu- 
tive in its nature. Their duties should be to see that , 
the operations planned and directed from the plan- ' 
ning room are promptly carried out in the shop. 
Their time should be spent with the men, teaching 
them to think ahead, and leading and instructing 
them in their work. 

(6), Throughout the whole field of management y 
the- military type of organization should be aban- 
doned, and what may be called the "functional type" 
substituted in its place. "Functional management" 
consists in so dividing the work of management that 
each man from the assistant superintendent down 
shall have as few functions as possible to perform. 
If practicable the work of each man in the manage- 
ment should be confined to the performance of a 
single leading function. 

Under the ordinary or military type the workmen 
are divided into groups. The men in each group 
receive their orders from one man only, the foreman 
or gang boss of that group. This man is the single 
agent through which the various functions of the 
management are brought into contact with the men. 
Certainly the most marked outward characteristic 
of functional management lies in the fact that each 
workman, instead of coming in direct contact with 
the management at one point only, namely, through 
his gang boss, receives his daily orders and help 
directly from eight different bosses, each of whom 
performs his own particular function. Four of these 
bosses are in the planning room and of these three 



100 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

send their orders to and receive their returns from 
the men, usually in writing. Four others are in the 
shop and personally help the men in their work, each 
boss helping in his own particular line or function 
only. Some of these bosses come in contact with 
each man only once or twice a day and then for a 
few minutes perhaps, while others are with the men 
all the time, and help each man frequently. The 
functions of one or two of these bosses require them 
to come in contact with each workman for so short 
a time each day that they can perform their particu- 
lar duties perhaps for all of the men in the shop, and 
in their line they manage the entire shop. Other 
bosses are called upon to help their men so much and 
so often that each boss can perform his function for 
but a few men, and in this particular line a number 
of bosses are required, all performing the same func- 
tion but each having his particular group of men to 
help. Thus the grouping of the men in the shop is 
entirely changed, each workman belonging to eight 
different groups according to the particular functional 
boss whom he happens to be working under at the 
moment. 

The following is a brief description of the duties of 
the four types of executive functional bosses which 
the writer has found it profitable to use in the active 
work of the shop : (1) gang bosses, (2) speed bosses, 
(3) inspectors, and (4) repair bosses. 

The gang boss has charge of the preparation of all 
work up to the time that the piece is set in the ma- 
chine. It is his duty to see that every man under 
him has at all times at least one piece of work ahead 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 101 

at his machine, with all the jigs, templets, drawings, 
driving mechanism, sling chains, etc., ready to go 
into his machine as soon as the piece he is actually 
working on is done. The gang boss must show his 
men how to set their work in their machines in the 
quickest time, and see that they do it. He is respon- 
sible for the work being accurately and quickly set, 
and should be not only able but willing to pitch in 
himself and show the men how to set the work in 
record time. 

The speed boss must see that the proper cutting 
tools are used for each piece of work, that the work 
is properly driven, that the cuts are started in the 
right part of the piece, and that the best speeds and 
feeds and depth of cut are used. His work begins 
only after the piece is in the lathe or planer, and 
ends when the actual machining ends. The speed 
boss must not only advise his men how best to do 
this work, but he must see that they do it in the 
quickest time, and that they use the speeds and feeds 
and depth of cut as directed on the instruction card. 
In many cases he is called upon to demonstrate that 
the work can be done in the specified time by doing 
it himself in the presence of his men. 

The inspector is responsible for the quality of the 
work, and both the workmen and speed bosses must 
see that the work is all finished to suit him. This 
man can, of course, do his work best if he is a master 
of the art of finishing work both well and quickly. 

The repair boss sees that each workman keeps his 
machine clean, free from rust and scratches, and that 
he oils and treats it properly, and that all of the stand- 



102 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

ards established for the care and maintenance of 
the machines and their accessories are rigidly main- 
tained, such as care of belts and shifters, cleanliness 
of floor around machines, and orderly piling and 
disposition of work. 

The following is an outline of the duties of the 
four functional bosses who are located in the planning 
room, and who in their various functions represent 
the department in its connection with the men. The 
first three of these send their directions to and receive 
their returns from the men, mainly in writing. These 
four representatives of the planning department are, 
the (1) order of work and route clerk, (2) instruction 
card clerk, (3) time and cost clerk, and (4) shop dis- 
ciplinarian. 

Order of Work and Route Clerk. After the route 
clerk in the planning department has laid out the 
exact route which each piece of work is to travel 
through the shop from machine to machine in order 
that it may be finished at the time it is needed for 
assembling, and the work done in the most economical 
way, the order of work clerk daily writes lists in- 
structing the workmen and also all of the executive 
shop bosses as to the exact order in which the work 
is to be done by each class of machines or men, and 
these lists constitute the chief means for directing 
the workmen in this particular function. 

Instruction Card Clerks. The " instruction card," 
as its name indicates, is the chief means employed 
by the planning department for instructing both the 
executive bosses and the men in all of the details 
of their work. It tells them briefly the general and 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 103 

detail drawing to refer to, the piece number and the 
cost order number to charge the work to, the special 
jigs, fixtures, or tools to use, where to start each cut, 
the exact depth of each cut, and how many cuts to 
take, the speed and feed to be used for each cut, and 
the time within which each operation must be fin- 
ished. It also informs them as to the piece rate, the 
differential rate, or the premium to be paid for com- 
pleting the task within the specified time (according 
to ihe system employed); and further, when neces- 
sary, refers them by name to the man who will give 
them especial directions. This instruction card is 
filled in by one or more members of the planning 
department, according to the nature and complication 
of the instructions, and bears the same relation to the 
planning room that the drawing does to the drafting 
room. The man who sends it into the shop and who, 
in case difficulties are met with in carrying out the 
instructions, sees that the proper man sweeps these 
difficulties away, is called the instruction card fore- 
man. 

Time and Cost Clerk. This man sends to the men 
through the "time ticket" all the information they 
need for recording their time and the cost of the 
work, and secures proper returns from them. He 
refers these for entry to the cost and time record 
clerks in the planning room. 

Shop Disciplinarian. In case of insubordination 
or impudence, repeated failure to do their duty, 
lateness or unexcused absence, the shop disciplinarian 
takes the workman or bosses in hand and applies the 
proper remedy. He sees that a complete record of 



104 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

each man's virtues and defects is kept. This man 
should also have much to do with readjusting the 
wages of the workmen. At the very least, he should 
invariably be consulted before any change is made. 
One of his important functions should be that of 
peace-maker. 

Thus, under functional foremanship, we see that 
the work which, under the military type of organiza- 
tion, was done by the single gang boss, is subdivided 
among eight men: (1) route clerks, (2) instruction 
card clerks, (3) cost and time clerks, who plan and 
give directions from the planning room; (4) gang 
bosses, (5) speed bosses, (6) inspectors, (7) repair 
bosses, who show the men how to carry out their 
instructions, and see that the work is done at the 
proper speed; and (8) the shop disciplinarian, who 
performs this function for the entire establishment. 

The greatest good resulting from this change is 
that it becomes possible in a comparatively short 
time to train bosses who can really and fully perform 
the functions demanded of them, while under the old 
system it took years to train men who were after all 
able to thoroughly perform only a portion of their 
duties. A glance at the nine qualities needed for a 
well rounded man and then at the duties of these 
functional foremen will show that each of these men 
requires but a limited number of the nine qualities 
in order to successfully fill his position; and that the 
special knowledge which he must acquire forms only 
a small part of that needed by the old style gang boss. 
The writer has seen men taken (some of them from 
the ranks of the workmen, others from the old style 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 105 

basses and others from among the graduates of in- 
dustrial schools, technical schools and colleges) and 
trained to become efficient functional foremen in 
from six to eighteen months. Thus it becomes 
possible with functional foremanship to thoroughly 
and completely equip even a new company starting 
on a large scale with competent officers in a reasonable 
time, which is entirely out of the question under the 
old system. Another great advantage resulting from 
functional or divided foremanship is that it becomes 
entirely practicable to apply the four leading princi- 
ples of management to the bosses as well as to the 
workmen. Each foreman can have a task assigned 
him which is so accurately measured that he will be 
kept fully occupied and still will daily be able to 
perform his entire function. This renders it possible 
to pay him high wages when he is successful by giving 
him a premium similar to that offered the men and 
leave him with low pay when he fails. 

The full possibilities of functional foremanship, 
however, will not have been realized until almost all 
of the machines in the shop are run by men who are 
of smaller calibre and attainments, and who are 
therefore cheaper than those required under the old 
system. The adoption of standard tools, appliances, 
and methods throughout the shop, the planning done 
in the planning room and the detailed instructions 
sent them from this department, added to the direct 
help received from the four executive bosses, permit 
the use of comparatively cheap men even on compli- 
cated work. Of the men in the machine shop of the 
Bethlehem Steel Company engaged in running the 



106 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

roughing machines, and who were working under the 
bonus system when the writer left them, about 95 
per cent, were handy men trained up from laborers. 
And on the finishing machines, working on bonus, 
about 25 per cent, were handy men. 

To fully understand the importance of the work 
which was being done by these former laborers, it 
must be borne in mind that a considerable part of 
their work was very large and expensive. The 
forgings which they were engaged in roughing and 
finishing weighed frequently many tons. Of course 
they were paid more than laborer's wages, though not 
as much as skilled machinists. The work in this 
shop was most miscellaneous in its nature. 

Functional foremanship is already in limited use 
in many of the best managed shops. A number of 
managers have seen the practical good that arises 
from allowing two or three men especially trained in 
their particular lines to deal directly with the men 
instead of at second hand through the old style gang 
boss as a mouthpiece. So deep rooted, however, is 
the conviction that the very foundation of manage- 
ment rests in the military type as represented by 
the principle that no workman can work under 
two bosses at the same time, that all of the mana- 
gers who are making limited use of the functional 
plan seem to feel it necessary to apologize for or 
explain away their use of it; as not really in this 
particular case being a violation of that principle. 
The writer has never yet found one, except among 
the works which he had assisted in organizing, who 
came out squarely and acknowledged that he was 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 107 

using functional foremanship because it was the right 
principle. 

The writer introduced five of the elements of 
functional foremanship into the management of the 
small machine shop of the Midvale Steel Company 
of Philadelphia while he was foreman of that shop 
in 1882-1883: (1) the instruction card clerk, (2) the 
time clerk, (3) the inspector, (4) the gang boss, and 
(5) the shop disciplinarian. Each of these functional 
foremen dealt directly with the workmen instead of 
giving their orders through the gang boss. The 
dealings of the instruction card clerk and time clerk 
with the workmen were mostly in writing, and the 
writer himself performed the functions of shop dis- 
ciplinarian, so that it was not until he introduced 
the inspector, with orders to go straight to the men 
instead of to the gang boss, that he appreciated the 
desirability of functional foremanship as a distinct 
principle in management . The prepossession in favor 
of the military type was so strong with the managers 
and owners of Midvale that it was not until years 
after functional foremanship was in continual use in 
this shop that he dared to advocate it to his superior 
officers as the correct principle. 

Until very recently in his organization of works 
he has found it best to first introduce five or six of 
the elements of functional foremanship quietly, and 
get them running smoothly in a shop before calling 
attention to the principle involved. When the time 
for this announcement comes, it invariably acts as 
the proverbial red rag on the bull. It was some 
years later that the writer subdivided the duties of 



108 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

the "old gang boss" who spent his whole time with 
the men into the four functions of (1) speed boss, 
(2) repair boss, (3) inspector, and (4) gang boss, and 
it is the introduction of these four shop bosses directly 
helping the men (particularly that of the speed boss) 
in place of the single old boss, that has produced the 
greatest improvement in the shop. 

When functional foremanship is introduced in a 
large shop, it is desirable that all of the bosses who 
are performing the same function should have their 
own foreman over them; for instance, the speed 
bosses should have a speed foreman over them, the 
gang bosses, a head gang boss; the inspectors, a chief 
inspector, etc., etc. The functions of these over-fore- 
men are twofold. The first part of their work is to 
teach each of the bosses under them the exact nature 
of his duties, and at the start, also to nerve and brace 
them up to the point of insisting that the workmen 
shall carry out the orders exactly as specified on the 
instruction cards. This is a difficult task at first, as 
the workmen have been accustomed for years to do 
the details of the work to suit themselves, and many 
of them are intimate friends of the bosses and believe 
they know quite as much about their business as the 
latter. The second function of the over-foreman is 
to smooth out the difficulties which arise between 
the different types of bosses who in turn directly 
help the men. The speed boss, for instance, always 
follows after the gang boss on any particular job in 
taking charge of the workmen. In this way their 
respective duties come in contact edgeways, as it 
were, for a short time, and at the start there is sure 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 109 

to be more or less friction between the two. If two 
of these bosses meet with a difficulty which they 
cannot settle, they send for their respective over- 
foremen, who are usually able to straighten it out. 
In case the latter are unable to agree on the remedy, 
the case is referred by them to the assistant superin- 
tendent, whose duties, for a certain time at least, 
may .consist largely in arbitrating such difficulties 
and thus establishing the unwritten code of laws by 
which the shop is governed. This serves as one ex- 
ample of what is called the " exception principle" 
in management, which is referred to later. 

Before leaving this portion of the subject the writer 
wishes to call attention to the analogy which func- 
tional foremanship bears to the management of a 
large, up-to-date school. In such a school the chil- 
dren are each day successively taken in hand by one 
teacher after another who is trained in his particular 
specialty, and they are in many cases disciplined by 
a man particularly trained in this function. The 
old style, one teacher to a class plan is entirely out 
of date. 

The writer has found that better results are attained 
by placing the planning department in one office, 
situated, of course, as close to the center of the shop 
or shops as practicable, rather than by locating its 
members in different places according to their duties. 
This department performs more or less the functions 
of a clearing house. In doing their various duties, 
its members must exchange information frequently, 
and since they send their orders to and receive their 
returns from the men in the shop, principally in 



110 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

writing, simplicity calls for the use, when possible, 
of a single piece of paper for each job for conveying 
the instructions of the different members of the plan- 
ning room to the men and another similar paper for 
receiving the returns from the men to the department. 
Writing out these orders and acting promptly on 
receipt of the returns and recording same requires 
the members of the department to be close together. 
The large machine shop of the Bethlehem Steel Com- 
pany was more than a quarter of a mile long, and 
this was successfully run from a single planning room 
situated close to it. The manager, superintendent, 
and their assistants should, of course, have their 
offices adjacent to the planning room and, if practica- 
ble, the drafting room should be near at hand, thus 
bringing all of the planning and purely brain work of 
the establishment close together. The advantages 
of this concentration were found to be so great at 
Bethlehem that the general offices of the company, 
which were formerly located in the business part of 
the town, about a mile and a half away, were moved 
into the middle of the works adjacent to the planning 
room. 

The shop, and indeed the whole works, should be 
managed, not by the manager, superintendent, or 
foreman, but by the planning department. The 
daily routine of running the entire works should be 
carried on by the various functional elements of this 
department, so that, in theory at least, the works 
could run smoothly even if the manager, superintend- 
ent and their assistants outside the planning room 
were all to be away for a month at a time. 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 111 

The following are the leading functions of the 
planning department: 

(a) The complete analysis of all orders for machines 
or work taken by the company. 

(b) Time study for all work done by hand through- 
out the works, including that done in setting the 
work in machines, and all bench, vise work and trans- 
portation, etc. 

(c) Time study for all operations done by the 
varipus machines. 

(d) The balance of all materials, raw materials, 
stores and finished parts, and the balance of the 
work ahead for each class of machines and workmen. 

(e) The analysis of all inquiries for new work re- 
ceived in the sales department and promises for time 
of delivery. 

(/) The cost of all items manufactured with com- 
plete expense analysis and complete monthly com- 
parative cost and expense exhibits. 

*(g) The pay department. 

(h) The mnemonic symbol system for identification 
of parts and for charges. 

(i) Information bureau. 

(j) Standards. 

(k) Maintenance of system and plant, and use of 
the tickler. 

(I) Messenger system and post office delivery. 

(m) Employment bureau. 

in) Shop disciplinarian. 

(o) A mutual accident insurance association. 

(p) Rush order department. 

(q) Improvement of system or plant. These 



112 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

several functions may be discribed more in detail 
as follows: 

(a) The complete Analysis of All Orders for 
Machines or Work Taken by the Company. 

This analysis should indicate the designing and 
drafting required, the machines or parts to be pur- 
chased and all data needed by the purchasing agent, 
and as soon as the necessary drawings and informa- 
tion come from the drafting room the lists of patterns, 
castings and forgings to be made, together with all 
instructions for making them, including general and 
detail drawing, piece number, the mnemonic sym- 
bol belonging to each piece (as referred to under 
(h) below) a complete analysis of the successive 
operations to be done on each piece, and the exact 
route which each piece is to travel from place to place 
in the works. 

(6) Time Study for All Work Done by Hand 
Throughout the Works, Including That 
Done in Setting the Work in Machines, 
and All Bench and Vise Work, and Trans- 
portation, etc. 

This information for each particular operation 
should be obtained by summing up the various 
unit times of which it consists. To do this, of 
course, requires the men performing this function 
to keep continually posted as to the best methods 
and appliances to use, and also to frequently consult 
with and receive advice from the executive gang 
bosses who carry out this work in the shop, and from 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 113 

the man in the department of standards and mainte- 
nance of plant (j) beneath. The actual study of 
unit times, of course, forms the greater part of the 
work of this section of the planning room. 

(c) Time Study for All Operations Done by 

the Various Machines. 

This information is best obtained from slide rules, 
one of which is made for each machine tool or class 
of machine tools throughout the works; one, for in- 
stance, for small lathes of the same type, one for 
planers of same type, etc. These slide rules show 
the best way to machine each piece and enable de- 
tailed directions to be given the workman as to how 
many cuts to take, where to start each cut, both for 
roughing out work and finishing it, the depth of the 
cut, the best feed and speed, and the exact time 
required to do each operation. 

The information obtained through function (6), 
together with that obtained through (c) afford the 
basis for fixing the proper piece rate, differential rate 
or the bonus to be paid, according to the system 
employed. 

(d) The Balance of All Materials, Raw Ma- 
terials, Stores and Finished Parts, and the 
Number of Days' Work Ahead for each 
Class of Machines and Workmen. ' 

Returns showing all receipts, as well as the issue 
of all raw materials, stores, partly finished work, and 
completed parts and machines, repair parts, etc., 
daily pass through the balance clerk, and each item 



114 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

of which there have been issues or receipts, or which 
has been appropriated to the use of a machine about 
to be manufactured, is daily balanced. Thus the 
balance clerk can see that the required stocks of 
materials are kept on hand by notifying at once the 
purchasing agent or other proper party when the 
amount on hand falls below the prescribed figure. 
The balance clerk should also keep a complete run- 
ning balance of the hours of work ahead for each class 
of machines and workmen, receiving for this purpose 
daily from (a), (b), and (c) above statements of the 
hours of new work entered, and from the inspectors 
and daily time cards a statement of the work as it 
is finished. He should keep the manager and sales 
department posted through daily or weekly con- 
densed reports as to the number of days of work 
ahead for each department, and thus enable them to 
obviate either a congestion or scarcity of work. 

(e) The Analysis of All Inquiries for New 
Work Received in the Sales Department 
and Promises as to Time of Delivery. 

The man or men in the planning room who per- 
form the duties indicated at (a) above should 
consult with (b) and (c) and obtain from them 
approximately the time required to do the work 
inquired for, arid from (d) the days of work ahead 
for the various machines and departments, and in- 
form the sales department as to the probable time 
required to do the work and the earliest date of 
delivery. 



shop management 115 

(/) The Cost of All Items Manufactured, with 
Complete Expense Analysis and Complete 
Monthly Comparative Cost and Expense 
Exhibits. 

The books of the company should be closed once 
a month and balanced as completely as they usually 
are at the end of the year, and the exact cost of each 
article of merchandise finished during the previous 
month should be entered on a comparative cost 
sheet. The expense exhibit should also be a com- 
parative sheet. The cost account should be a com- 
pletely balanced account, and not a memorandum 
account as it generally is. All the expenses of the 
establishment, direct and indirect, including the 
administration and sales expense, should be charged 
to the cost of the product which is to be sold. 

(g) The Pay Department. 

The pay department should include not only a 
record of the time and wages and piece work earn- 
ings of each man, and his weekly or monthly pay- 
ment, but the entire supervision of the arrival and 
departure of the men from the works and the various 
checks needed to insure against error or cheating. 
It is desirable that some one of the " exception sys- 
tems" of time keeping should be used. 

(h) The Mnemonic Symbol System for Identifica- 
tion of Parts and for Charges. 

Some one of the mnemonic symbol systems should 
be used instead of numbering the parts or orders for 
identifying the various articles of manufacture, as 



116 < SHOP MANAGEMENT 

well as the operations to be performed on each piece 
and the various expense charges of the establishment. 
This becomes a matter of great importance when 
written directions are sent from the planning room 
to the men, and the men make their returns in writ- 
ing. The clerical work and chances for error are 
thereby greatly diminished. 

(i) Information Bureau. 

The information bureau should include catalogues 

of drawings (providing the drafting room is close 

enough to the planning room) as well as all records 

and reports for the whole establishment. The art 

of properly indexing information is by no means a 

simple one, and as far as possible it should be centred 

in one man. 

(j) Standards. 

The adoption and maintenance of standard tools, 
fixtures, and appliances down to the smallest item 
throughout the works and office, as well as the adop- 
tion of standard methods of doing all operations 
which are repeated, is a matter of importance, so 
that under similar conditions the same appliances 
and methods shall be used throughout the plant. 
This is an absolutely necessary preliminary to success 
in assigning daily tasks which are fair and which can 
be carried out with certainty. 

(k) Maintenance of System and Plant, and Use 
of the Tickler. 

One of the most important functions of the plan- 
ning room is that of the maintenance of the entire 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 117 

system, and of standard methods and appliances 
throughout the establishment, including the plan- 
ning room itself. An elaborate time table should be 
made out showing daily the time when and place 
where each report is due, which is necessary to carry 
on the, work and to maintain the system. It should 
be the duty of the member of the planning room in 
charge of this function to find out at each time 
through the day when reports are due, whether they 
have been received, and if not, to keep bothering the 
man who is behind hand until he has done his duty. 
Almost all of the reports, etc., going in and out of the 
planning room can be made to pass through this man. 
As a mechanical aid to him in performing his function 
the tickler is invaluable. The best type of tickler is 
one which has a portfolio for each day in the year, 
large enough to insert all reminders and even quite 
large instruction cards and reports without folding. 
In maintaining methods and appliances, notices 
should be placed in the tickler in advance, to come 
out at proper intervals throughout the year for the 
inspection of each element of the system and the 
inspection and overhauling of all standards as well as 
the examination and repairs at stated intervals of 
parts of machines, boilers, engines, belts, etc., likely 
to wear out or give trouble, thus preventing break- 
downs and delays. One tickler can be used for the 
entire works and is preferable to a number of indi- 
vidual ticklers. Each man can remind himself of his 
various small routine duties to be performed either 
daily or weekly, etc., and which might be otherwise 
overlooked, by sending small reminders, written on 



118 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

slips of paper, to be placed in the tickler and returned 
to him at the proper time. Both the tickler and a 
thoroughly systematized messenger service should be 
immediately adjacent to this man in the planning 
room, if not directly under his management. 

The proper execution of this function of the plan- 
ning room will relieve the superintendent of some of 
the most vexatious and time-consuming of his duties, 
and at the same time the work will be done more 
thoroughly and cheaper than if he does it himself. 
By the adoption of standards and the use of instruc- 
tion cards for overhauling machinery, etc., and the 
use of a tickler as above described, the writer reduced 
the repair force of the Midvale Steel Works to one- 
third its size while he was in the position of master 
mechanic. There was no planning department, how- 
ever, in the works at that time. 

(I) Messenger System and Post Office Delivery. 

The messenger system should be thoroughly organ- 
ized and records kept showing which of the boys are 
the most efficient. This should afford one of the best 
opportunities for selecting boys fit to be taught trades, 
as apprentices or otherwise. 

There should be a regular half hourly post office 
delivery system for collecting and distributing routine 
reports and records and messages in no especial hurry 
throughout the works. 

(m) Employment Bureau. 

The selection of the men who are employed to fill 
vacancies or new positions should receive the most 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 119 

careful thought and attention and should be under 
the supervision of a competent man who will inquire 
into the experience and especial fitness and character 
of applicants and keep constantly revised lists of men 
suitable for the various positions in the shop. In 
this section of the planning room an individual record 
of each of the men in the works can well be kept 
showing his punctuality, absence without excuse, vio- 
lation of shop rules, spoiled work or damage to ma- 
chines or tools, as well as his skill at various kinds 
of work; average earnings, and other good qualities 
for the use of this department as well as the shop 
disciplinarian. 

(n) The Shop Disciplinarian. 

This man may well be closely associated with the 
employment bureau and, if the works is not too large, 
the two functions can be performed by the same man. 
The knowledge of character and of the qualities 
needed for various positions acquired in disciplining 
the men should be useful in selecting them for em- 
ployment. This man should, of course, consult con- 
stantly with the various foremen and bosses, both in 
his function as disciplinarian and in the employment 
of men. 

(o) A Mutual Accident Insurance Association. 

A mutual accident insurance association should be 
established, to which the company contributes as well 
as the men. The object of this association is two- 
fold: first, the relief of men who are injured, and 
second, an opportunity of returning to the workmen 



120 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

all fines which are imposed upon them in disciplining 
them, and for damage to company's property or work 
spoiled. 

(p) Rush Order Department. 

Hurrying through parts which have been spoiled 
or have developed defects, and also special repair 
orders for customers, should receive the attention of 
one man. 

(q) Improvement of System or Plant. 

One man should be especially charged with the 
work of improvement in the system and in the run- 
ning of the plant. 

The type of organization described in the foregoing 
paragraphs has such an appearance of complication 
and there are so many new positions outlined in the 
planning room which do not exist even in a well man- 
aged establishment of the old school, that it seems 
desirable to again call attention to the fact that, with 
the exception of the study of unit times and one or 
two minor functions, each item of work which is per- 
formed in the planning room with the superficial 
appearance of great complication must also be per- 
formed by the workmen in the shop under the old 
type of management, with its single cheap foreman 
and the appearance of great simplicity. In the first 
case, however, the work is done by an especially 
trained body of men who work together like a 
smoothly running machine, and in the second by a 
much larger number of men very poorly trained and 
ill-fitted for this work, and each of whom while doing 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 121 

it is taken away from some other job for which he is 
well trained. The work which is now done by one 
sewing machine, intricate in its appearance, was for- 
merly done by a number of women with no apparatus 
beyond .a simple needle and thread. 

There is no question that the cost of production is -*r 
lowered by separating the work of planning and the 
brain work as much as possible from the manual 
labor. When this is done, however, it is evident that 
the brain workers must be given sufficient work to 
keep them fully busy all the time. They must not 
be allowed to stand around for a considerable part 
of their time waiting for their particular kind of work 
to come along, as is so frequently the case. 

The belief is almost universal among manufac- 
turers that for economy the number of brain workers, 
or non-producers, as they are called, should be as 
small as possible in proportion to the number of pro- 
ducers, i.e., those who actually work with their hands. 
An examination of the most successful establishments 
will, however, show that the reverse is true. A num- 
ber of years ago the writer made a careful study of 
the proportion of producers to non-producers in three 
of the largest and most successful companies in the 
world, who were engaged in doing the same work in 
a general way. One of these companies was in 
France, one in Germany, and one in the United 
States. Being to a certain extent rivals in business 
and situated in different countries, naturally neither 
one had anything to do with the management of the 
other. In the course of his investigation, the writer 
found that the managers had never even taken the 



122 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

trouble to ascertain the exact proportion of non- 
producers to producers in their respective works; so 
that the organization of each company was an entirely 
independent evolution. 

By " non-producers " the writer means such em- 
ployes as all of the general officers, the clerks, 
foremen, gang bosses, watchmen, messenger boys, 
draftsmen, salesmen, etc.; and by " producers," only 
those who actually work with their hands.. 

In the French and German works there was found 
to be in each case one non-producer to between six 
and seven producers, and in the American works one 
non-producer to about seven producers. The writer 
found that in the case of another works, doing the 
same kind of business and whose management was 
notoriously bad, the proportion of non-producers to 
producers was one non-producer to about eleven pro- 
ducers. These companies all had large forges, foun- 
dries, rolling mills and machine shops turning out a 
miscellaneous product, much of which was machined. 
They turned out a highly wrought, elaborate and 
exact finished product, and did an extensive engineer- 
ing and miscellaneous machine construction business. 

In the case of a company doing a manufacturing 
business with a uniform and simple product for the 
maximum economy, the number of producers to each 
non-producer would of course be larger. No manager 
need feel alarmed then when he sees the number of 
non-producers increasing in proportion to producers, 
providing the non-producers are busy all of their 
time, and providing, of course, that in each case they 
are doing efficient work. 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 123 

It would seem almost unnecessary to dwell upon 
the desirability of standardizing, not only all of the 
tools, appliances and implements throughout the 
works and office, but also the methods to be used in 
the multitude of small operations which are repeated 
day after day. There are many good managers of 
the old school, however, who feel that this standard- 
ization is not only unnecessary but that it is unde- 
sirable, their principal reason being that it is better 
to allow each workman to develop his individuality 
by choosing the particular implements and methods 
which suit him best. And there is considerable 
weight in this contention when the scheme of manage- 
ment is to allow each workman to do the work as he 
pleases and hold him responsible for results. Un- 
fortunately, in ninety-nine out of a hundred such 
cases only the first part of this plan is carried out. 
The workman chooses his own methods and imple- 
ments, but is not held in any strict sense accountable 
unless the quality of the work is so poor or the quan- 
tity turned out is so small as to almost amount to a 
scandal. In the type of management advocated by ^ 
the writer, this complete standardization of all details 
and methods is not only desirable but absolutely 
indispensable as a preliminary to specifying the time 
in which each operation shall be done, and then in- 
sisting that it shall be done within the time allowed. 

Neglecting to take the time and trouble to thor- 
oughly standardize all of such methods and details 
is one of the chief causes for setbacks and failure in 
introducing this system. Much better results can 
be attained, even if poor standards be adopted, than 



124 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

can be reached if some of a given class of implements 
are the best of their kind while others are poor. It 
is uniformity that is required. Better have them 
uniformly second class than mainly first with some 
second and some third class thrown in at random. 
In the latter case the workmen will almost always 
adopt the pace which conforms to the third class 
instead of the first or second. In fact, however, it 
is not a matter involving any great expense or time 
to select in each case standard implements which 
shall be nearly the best or the best of their kinds.' 
The writer has never failed to make enormous 
gains in the economy of running by the adoption of 
standards. 

It was in the course of making a series of experi- 
ments with various air hardening tool steels with a 
view to adopting a standard for the Bethlehem works 
that Mr. J. Maunsel White, together with the writer, 
discovered the Taylor- White process of treating tool 
steel, which marks a distinct improvement in the 
art. The fact that this improvement was made not 
by manufacturers of tool steel, but in the course of 
the adoption of standards, shows both the necessity 
and fruitfulness of methodical and careful investiga- 
tion in the choice of much neglected details. The 
economy to be gained through the adoption of uni- 
form standards is hardly realized at all by the man- 
agers of this country. No better illustration of this 
fact is needed than that of the present condition of 
the cutting tools used throughout the machine shops 
of the United States. Hardly a shop can be found 
in which tools made from a dozen different qualities 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 125 

of steel are not used side by side, in many cases with 
little or no means of telling one make from another; 
and in addition, the shape of the cutting edge of the 
tool is in most cases left to the fancy of each individual 
workman. When one realizes that the cutting speed 
of the best treated air hardening steel is for a given 
depth of cut, feed and quality of metal being cut, 
say sixty feet per minute, while with the same shaped 
tool made from the best carbon tool steel and with 
the same conditions, the cutting speed will be only 
twelve feet per minute, it becomes apparent how 
little the necessity for rigid standards is appreciated. 
Let us take another illustration. The machines 
of the country are still driven by belting. The 
motor drive, while it is coming, is still in the future. 
There is not one establishment in one hundred that 
does not leave the care and tightening of the belts 
to the judgment of the individual who runs the ma- 
chine, although it is well known to all who have given 
any study to the subject that the most skilled ma- 
chinist cannot properly tighten a belt without the 
use of belt clamps fitted with spring balances to 
properly register the tension . And the writer showed 
in a paper entitled " Notes on Belting" presented to 
The American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 
1893, giving the results of an experiment tried on all 
of the belts in a machine shop and extending through 
nine years, in which every detail of the care and 
tightening and tension of each belt was recorded, 
that belts properly cared for according to a standard 
method by a trained laborer would average twice 
Ihe pulling power and only a fraction of the intcrrup- 



126 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

tions to manufacture of those tightened according to 
the usual methods. The loss now going on through- 
out the country from failure to adopt and maintain 
standards for all small details is simply enormous. 

It is, however, a good sign for the future that a 
firm such as Messrs. Dodge & Day of Philadelphia, 
who are making a specialty of standardizing machine 
shop details, find their time fully occupied. 

What may be called the "exception principle" in 
management is coming more and more into use, 
although, like many of the other elements of this art, 
it is used in isolated cases, and in most instances 
without recognizing it as a principle which should 
extend throughout the entire field. It is not an 
uncommon sight, though a sad one, to see the manager 
of a large business fairly swamped at his desk with 
an ocean of letters and reports, on each of which he 
thinks that he should put his initial or stamp. He 
feels that by having this mass of detail pass over his 
desk he is keeping in close touch with the entire 
business. The exception principle is directly the 
reverse of this. Under it the manager should receive 
only condensed, summarized, and invariably com- 
parative reports, covering, however, all of the ele- 
ments entering into the management, and even these 
summaries should all be carefully gone over by an 
assistant before they reach the manager, and have 
all of the exceptions to the past averages or to the 
standards pointed out, both the especially good and 
especially bad exceptions, thus giving him in a few 
minutes a full view of progress which is being made, 
or the reverse, and leaving him free to consider the 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 127 

broader lines of policy and to study the character 
and fitness of the important men under him. The 
exception principle can be applied in many ways, 
and the writer will endeavor to give some further 
illustrations of it later. 

The writer has dwelt at length upon the desirability 
of concentrating as much as possible clerical and 
brain work in the planning department. There is, 
however, one such important exception to this rule 
that it would seem desirable to call attention to it. 
As already stated, the planning room gives its orders 
and instructions to the men mainly in writing and 
of necessity must also receive prompt and reliable 
written returns and reports which shall enable its 
members to issue orders for the next movement of 
each piece, lay out the work for each man for the 
following day, properly post the balance of work and 
materials accounts, enter the records on cost accounts 
and also enter the time and pay of each man on the 
pay sheet. There is no question that all of this 
information can be given both better and cheaper 
by the workman direct than through the intermediary 
of a walking time keeper, providing the proper in- 
struction and report system has been introduced in 
the works with carefully ruled and printed instruction 
and return cards, and particularly providing a com- 
plete mnemonic system of symbols has been adopted 
so as to save the workmen the necessity of doing 
much writing. The principle to which the writer 
wishes to call particular attention is that the only 
way in which workmen can be induced to write out 
all of this information accurately and promptly is by 



128 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

having each man write his own time while on day 
work and pay when on piece work on the same card 
on which he is to enter the other desired information, 
and then refusing to enter his pay on the pay sheet 
until after all of the required information has been 
correctly given by him. Under this system as soon 
as a workman completes a job and at quitting time, 
whether the job is completed or not, he writes on a 
printed time card all of the information needed by 
the planning room in connection with that job, signs 
it and forwards it at once to the planning room. 
On arriving in the planning room each time card 
passes through the order of work or route clerk, the 
balance clerk, the cost clerk, etc., on its way to 
the pay sheet, and unless the workman has written 
the desired information the card is sent back to 
him, and he is apt to correct and return it promptly 
so as to have his pay entered up. The principle is 
clear that if one wishes to have routine clerical work 
done promptly and correctly it should somehow be 
attached to the pay card of the man who is to give 
it. This principle, of course, applies to the informa- 
tion desired from inspectors, gang bosses and others 
as well as workmen, and to reports required from 
various clerks. In the case of reports, a pay coupon 
can be attached to the report which will be detached 
and sent to the pay sheet as soon as the report has 
been found correct. 

Before starting to make any radical changes lead- 
ing toward an improvement in the system of manage- 
ment, it is desirable, and for ultimate success in most 
cases necessary, that the directors and the important 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 129 

owners of an enterprise shall be made to understand, 
at least in a general way, what is involved in the 
change. They should be informed of the leading 
objects which the new system aims at, such, for in- 
stance, as rendering mutual the interests of employer 
and employe through "high wages and low labor 
cost," the gradual selection and development of a 
body of first class picked workmen who will work 
extra hard and receive extra high wages and be dealt 
with individually instead of in masses. They should 
thoroughly understand that this can only be accom- 
plished through the adoption of precise and exact 
methods, and having each smallest detail, both as to 
methods and appliances, carefully selected so as to 
be the best of its kind. They should understand the 
general philosophy of the system and should see that, 
as a whole, it must be in harmony with its few leading 
ideas, and that principles and details which are admi- 
rable in one type of management have no place what- 
ever in another. They should be shown that it pays 
to employ an especial corps to introduce a new system 
just as it pays to employ especial designers and work- 
men to build a new plant; that, while a new system 
is being introduced, almost twice the number of fore- 
men are required as are needed to run it after it is hi; 
that all of this costs money, but that, unlike a new 
plant, returns begin to come in almost from the start 
from improved methods and appliances as they are 
introduced, and that in most cases the new system 
more than pays for itself as it goes along; that time, 
and a great deal of time, is involved in a radical 
change in management, and that in the case of a 



130 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

large works if they are incapable of looking ahead 
and patiently waiting for from two to four years, 
they had better leave things just as they are, since a 
change of system involves a change in the ideas, 
point of view and habits of many men with strong 
convictions and prejudices, and that this can only 
be brought about slowly and chiefly through a series 
of object lessons, each of which takes time, and 
through continued reasoning; and that for this rea- 
son, after deciding to adopt a given type, the neces- 
sary steps should be taken as fast as possible, one 
^ after another, for its introduction. The directors 
should be convinced that an increase in the propor- 
tion of non-producers to producers means increased 
economy and not red tape, providing the non- 
producers are kept busy at their respective functions. 
They should be prepared to lose some of their valuable 
men who cannot stand the change and also for the 
continued indignant protest of many of their old and 
trusted employes who can see nothing but extrava- 
gance in the new ways and ruin ahead. It is a matter 
of the first importance that, in addition to the direc- 
tors of the company, all of those connected with the 
management should be given a broad and compre- 
hensive view of the general objects to be attained 
and the means which will be employed. They should 
fully realize before starting on their work and should 
never lose sight of the fact that the great object of 
the new organization is to bring about two momen- 
tous changes in the men: 

First. A complete revolution in their mental atti- 
tude toward their employers and their work. 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 131 

Second. As a result of this change of feeling such 
an increase in their determination and physical activ- 
ity, and such an improvement in the conditions under 
which the work is done as will result in many cases in 
their turning out from two to three times as much 
work as they have done in the past. 

First, then, the men must be brought to see that 
the new system changes their employers from antago- 
nists to friends who are working as hard as possible 
side by side with them, all pushing in the same direc- 
tion and all helping to bring about such an increase 
in the output and to so cheapen the cost of production 
that the men will be paid permanently from thirty 
to one hundred per cent, more than they have earned 
in the past, and that there will still be a good profit 
left over for the company. At first workmen cannot 
see why, if they do twice as much work as they have 
done, they should not receive twice the wages. When 
the matter is properly explained to them and they 
have time to think it over, they will see that in most 
cases the increase in output is quite as much due to 
the improved appliances and methods, to the main- 
tenance of standards and to the great help which they 
receive from the men over them as to their own harder 
work. They will realize that the company must pay 
for the introduction of the improved system, which 
costs thousands of dollars, and also the salaries of 
the additional foremen and of the clerks, etc., in the 
planning room as well as tool room and other expenses 
and that, in addition, the company is entitled to 
an increased profit quite as much as the men are. 
All but a few of them will come to understand in a 



132 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

general way that under the new order of things they 
are cooperating with their employers to make as 
great a saving as possible and that they will receive 
permanently their fair share of this gain. 

Then after the men acquiesce in the new order of 
things and are willing to do their part toward cheapen- 
ing production, it will take time for them to change 
from their old easy-going ways to a" higher rate of 
speed, and to learn to stay steadily at their work, 
think ahead and make every minute count. A cer- 
tain percentage of them, with the best of intentions, 
will fail in this and find that they have no place in 
the new organization, while still others, and among 
them some of the best workers who are, however, 
either stupid or stubborn, can never be made to see 
that the new system is as good as the old; and these, 
too, must drop out. Let no one imagine, however, 
that this great change in the mental attitude of the 
men and the increase in their activity can be brought 
about by merely talking to them. Talking will be 
most useful — in fact indispensable — and no oppor- 
tunity should be lost of explaining matters to them 
patiently, one man at a time, and giving them 
every chance to express their views. 

Their real instruction, however, must come through 
a series of object lessons. They must be convinced 
that a great increase in speed is possible by seeing 
here and there a man among them increase his pace 
and double or treble his output. They must see 
this pace maintained until they are convinced that 
it is not a mere spurt; and, most important of all, 
they must see the men who "get there" in this way 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 133 

receive a proper increase in wages and become satis- 
fied. It is only with these object lessons in plain 
sight that the new theories can be made to stick. 
It will be in presenting these object lessons and in 
smoothing away the difficulties so that the high speed 
can be maintained, and in assisting to form public 
opinion in the shop, that the great efficiency of func- 
tional f oremanship under the direction of the planning 
room will first become apparent. 

In reaching the final high rate of speed which shall 
be steadily maintained, the broad fact should be 
realized that the men must pass through several dis- 
tinct phases, rising from one plane of efficiency to 
another until the final level is reached. First they 
must be taught to work under an improved system 
of day work. Each man must learn how to give up 
his own particular way of doing things, adapt his 
methods to the many new standards, and grow accus- 
tomed to receiving and obeying directions covering 
details, large and small, which in the past have been 
left to his individual judgment. At first the work- 
men can see nothing in all of this but red tape and 
impertinent interference, and time must be allowed 
them to recover from their irritation, not only at 
this, but at every stage in their upward march. If 
they have been classed together and paid uniform 
wages for each class, the better men should be singled 
out and given higher wages so that they shall dis- 
tinctly recognize the fact that each man is to be paid 
according to his individual worth. After becoming 
accustomed to direction in minor matters, they must 
gradually learn to obey instructions as to the pace at 



134 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

which they are to work, and grasp the idea, first, 
that the planning department knows accurately how 
long each operation should take; and second, that 
sooner or later they will have to work at the required 
speed if they expect to prosper. After they are used 
to following the speed instructions given them, then 
one at a time they can be raised to the level of main- 
taining a rapid pace throughout the day. And it is 
not until this final step has been taken that the full 
measure of the value of the new system will be felt by 
the men through daily receiving larger wages, and by 
the company through a materially larger output and 
lower cost of production. It is evident, of course, 
that all of the workmen in the shop will not rise 
together from one level to another. Those engaged 
in certain lines of work will have reached their final 
high speed while others have barely taken the first 
step. The efforts of the new management should 
not be spread out thin over the whole shop. They 
should rather be focussed upon a few points, leaving 
the ninety and nine under the care of their former 
shepherds. After the efficiency of the men who are 
receiving special assistance and training has been 
raised to the desired level, the means for holding them 
there should be perfected, and they should never be 
allowed to lapse into their old ways. This will, of 
course, be accomplished in the most permanent way 
and rendered almost automatic, either through intro- 
ducing task work with a bonus or the differential 
rate. 

Before taking any steps toward changing methods 
the manager should realize that at no time during 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 135 

the introduction of the system should any broad, 
sweeping changes be made which seriously affect 
a large number of the workmen. It would be pre- 
posterous, for instance, in going from day to piece 
work to start a large number of men on piece work 
at the same time. Throughout the early stages of 
organization each change made should affect one 
workman only, and after the single man affected has 
become used to the new order of things, then change 
one man after another from the old system to the new, 
slowly at first, and rapidly as public opinion in the 
shop swings around under the influence of proper 
object lessons. Throughout a considerable part of 
the time, then, there will be two distinct systems of 
management in operation in the same shop; and in 
many cases it is desirable to have the men working 
under the new system managed by an entirely differ- 
ent set of foremen, etc., from those under the old. 

The first step, after deciding upon the type of 
organization, should be the selection of a competent 
man to take charge of the introduction of the new 
system. The manager should think himself fortu- 
nate if he can get such a man at almost any price,' 
since the task is a difficult and thankless one and but 
few men can be found who possess the necessary 
information coupled with the knowledge of men, 
the nerve, and the tact required for success in this 
work. The manager should keep himself free as far 
as possible from all active part in the introduction 
of the new system. While changes are going on it 
will require his entire energies to see that there is no 
falling off in the efficiency of the old system and that 



Hr 



* 



136 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

the quality and quantity of the output is kept up. 
The mistake which is usually made when a change 
in system is decided upon is that the manager and 
his principal assistants undertake to make all of the 
improvements themselves during their spare time, 
with the common result that weeks, months, and years 
go by without anything great being accomplished. 
The respective duties of the manager and the man in 
charge of improvement, and the limits of the author- 
ity of the latter should be clearly defined and agreed 
upon, always bearing in mind that responsibility 
should invariably be accompanied by its correspond- 
ing measure of authority. 

The worst mistake that can be made is to refer to 
any part of the system as being "on trial. " Once 
a given step is decided upon, all parties must be made 
to understand that it will go whether any one around 
the place likes it or not. In making changes in sys- 
tem the things that are given a "fair trial" fail, 
while the things that "must go," go all right. 

To decide where to begin is a perplexing and bewil- 
dering problem which faces the reorganizer in man- 
agement when he arrives in a large establishment. In 
making this decision, as in taking each subsequent 
step, the most important consideration, which should 
always be first in the mind of the reformer, is "what 
effect will this step have upon the workmen?" 
Through some means (it would almost appear some 
especial sense) the workman seems to scent the 
approach of a reformer even before his arrival in 
town. Their suspicions are thoroughly aroused, and 
they are on the alert for sweeping changes which are 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 137 

to be against their interests and which they are pre- 
pared to oppose from the start. Through generations 
of bitter experiences working men as a class have 
learned to look upon all change as antagonistic to 
their best interests. They do not ask the object of 
the change, but oppose it simply as change. The 
first changes, therefore, should be such as to allay the 
suspicions of the men and convince them by actual 
contact that the reforms are after all rather harm- 
less and are only such as will ultimately be of benefit 
to all concerned. Such improvements then as 
directly affect the workmen least should be started 
first. At the same time it must be remembered 
that the whole operation is of necessity so slow that 
the new system should be started at as many points 
as possible, and constantly pushed as hard as possible. 
In the metal working plant which we are using for 
purposes of illustration a start can be made at once 
along all of the following lines: 

First. The introduction of standards throughout 
the works and office. 

Second. The scientific study of unit times on several 
different kinds of work. 

Third. A complete analysis of the pulling, feeding 
power and the proper speeding of the various machine 
tools throughout the place with a view of making a 
slide rule for properly running each machine. 

Fourth. The work of establishing the system of 
time cards by means of which ultimately all of the 
desired information will be conveyed from the men 
to the planning room. 

Fifth. Overhauling the stores issuing and receiv- 



138 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

ing system so as to establish a complete running 
balance of materials. 

Sixth. Ruling and printing the various blanks that 
will be required for shop returns and reports, time 
cards, instruction cards, expense sheets, cost sheets, 
pay sheet, and balance records; storeroom; tickler; 
and maintenance of standards, system, and plant, 
etc.; and starting such functions of the planning 
room as do not directly affect the men. 

If the works is a large one, the man in charge of 
introducing the system should appoint a special 
assistant in charge of each of the above functions 
just as an engineer designing a new plant would start 
a number of draftsmen to work upon the various 
elements of construction. Several of these assist- 
ants will be brought into close contact with the men, 
who will in this way gradually get used to seeing 
changes going on and their suspicion, both of the 
new men and the methods, will have been allayed 
to such an extent before any changes which seriously 
affect them are made, that little or no determined 
opposition on their part need be anticipated. The 
most important and difficult task of the organizer 
will be that of selecting and training the various 
functional foremen who are to lead and instruct the 
workmen, and his success will be measured princi- 
pally by his ability to mold and reach these men. 
They cannot be found, they must be made. They 
must be instructed in their new functions largely, 
in the beginning at least, by the organizer himself; 
and this instruction, to be effective, should be 
mainly in actually doing the work. Explanation and 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 139 

theory will go a little way, but actual doing is needed 
to carry conviction. To illustrate: For nearly two 
and one-half years in the large shop of the Bethlehem 
Steel Company, one speed boss after another was 
instructed in the art of cutting metals fast on a large 
motor-driven lathe which was especially fitted to 
run at any desired speed within a very wide range. 
The work done in this machine was entirely con- 
nected, either with the study of cutting tools or the 
instruction of speed bosses. It was most interesting 
to see these men, principally either former gang 
bosses or the best workmen, gradually change from 
their attitude of determined and positive opposition 
to that in most cases of enthusiasm for, and earnest 
support of, the new methods. It was actually run- 
ning the lathe themselves according to the new 
method and under the most positive and definite 
orders that produced the effect. The writer himself 
ran the lathe and instructed the first few bosses. It 
required from three weeks to two months for each 
man. Perhaps the most important part of the gang 
boss's and foreman's education lies in teaching them 
to promptly obey orders and instructions received 
not only from the superintendent or some official 
high in the company, but from any member of the 
planning room whose especial function it is to direct 
the rest of the works in his particular line; and it may 
be accepted as an unquestioned fact that no gang 
boss is fit to direct his men until after he has learned 
to promptly obey instructions received from any 
proper source, whether he likes his instructions and 
the instructor or not, and even although he may be 



140 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

convinced that he knows a much better way of doing 
the work. The first step is for each man to learn 
to obey the laws as they exist, and next, if the laws 
are wrong, to have them reformed in the proper way. 
In starting to organize even a comparatively small 
shop, containing say from 75 to 100 men, it is 
best to begin by training in the full number of 
functional foremen, one for each function, since it 
must be remembered that about two out of three of 
those who are taught this work either leave of their 
own accord or prove unsatisfactory; and in addition, 
while both the workmen and bosses are adjusting 
themselves to their new duties, there are needed fully 
twice the number of bosses as are required to carry 
on the work after it is fully systematized. 

Unfortunately, there is no means of selecting in 
advance those out of a number of candidates for a 
given work who are likely to prove successful. Many 
of those who appear to have all of the desired quali- 
ties, and who talk and appear the best, will turn out 
utter failures, while on the other hand, some of the 
most unlikely men rise to the top. The fact is, that 
the more attractive qualities of good manners, edu- 
cation, and even special training and skill, which 
are more apparent on the surface, count for less in 
an executive position than the grit, determination 
and bulldog endurance and tenacity that knows no 
defeat and comes up smiling to be knocked down over 
and over again. 
j£ The two qualities which count most for success 
in this kind of executive work are grit and what may 
be called " constructive imagination" — the faculty 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 141 

which enables a man to use the few facts that are 
stored in his mind in getting around the obstacles 
that oppose him, and in building up something use- 
ful in spite of them; and unfortunately, the presence 
of these qualities, together with honesty and common 
sense, can only be proved through an actual trial at 
executive work. As we all know, success at college 
or in the technical school does not indicate the 
presence of these qualities, even though the man may 
have worked hard. Mainly, it would seem, because "ft* 
the wbrk of obtaining an education is principally that 
of absorption and assimilation; while that of active 
practical life is principally the direct reverse, namely, 
that of giving out. 

In selecting men to be tried as foremen, or in fact 
for any position throughout the place, from the day 
laborer up, one of two different types of men should 
be chosen, according to the nature of the work to 
be done. For one class of work, men should be 
selected who are too good for the job; and for the 
other class of work, men who are barely good enough. 

If the work is of a routine nature, in which the 
same operations are likely to be done over and over 
again, with no great variety, and in which there is no 
apparent prospect of a radical change being made, 
perhaps through a term of years, even though the 
work itself may be complicated in its nature, a man 
should be selected whose abilities are barely equal to 
the task. Time and training will fit him for his 
work, and since he will be better paid than in the 
past, and will realize that he has been given the 
chance to make his abilities yield him the largest 



142 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

return — all of the elements for promoting content- 
ment will be present; and those men who are blessed 
with cheerful dispositions will become satisfied and 
remain so. Of course, a considerable part of mankind 
is so born or educated that permanent contentment 
is out of the question. No one, however, should be 
influenced by the discontent of this class. 

On the other hand, if the work to be done is 
of great variety — particularly if improvements in 
methods are to be anticipated — throughout the 
period of active organization the men engaged in 
systematizing should be too good for their jobs. For 
such work, men should be selected whose mental 
caliber and attainments will fit them, ultimately at 
least, to command higher wages than can be afforded 
on the work which they are at. It will prove a wise 
policy to promote such men both to better positions 
and pay, when they have shown themselves capable 
of accomplishing results and the opportunity offers. 
The results which these high-class men will accom- 
plish, and the comparatively short time which they 
will take in organizing, will much more than pay for 
the expense and trouble, later on, of training other 
men, cheaper and of less capacity, to take their places. 
In many cases, however, gang bosses and men will 
develop faster than new positions open for them. 
When this occurs, it will pay employers well to 
find them positions in other works, either with better 
pay, or larger opportunities; not only as a matter of 
kindly feeling and generosity toward their men, but 
even more with the object of promoting the best 
interests of their own establishments. For one man 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 143 

lost in this way, five will be stimulated to work to 
the very limit of their abilities, and will rise ulti- 
mately to take the place of the man who has gone, 
and the best class of men will apply for work where 
these methods prevail. But few employers, how- 
ever, are sufficiently broad-minded to adopt this 
policy. They dread the trouble and temporary 
inconvenience incident to training in new men. 

Mr. James M. Dodge, Chairman of the Board 
of the _ Link-Belt Company, is one of the few men 
with whom the writer is acquainted who has been led 
by his kindly instincts, as well as by a far-sighted 
policy, to treat his employes in this way; and this, 
together with the personal magnetism and influence 
which belong to men of his type, has done much to 
render his shop one of the model establishments of 
the country, certainly as far as the relations of em- 
ployer and men are concerned. On the other hand, 
this policy of promoting men and finding them new 
positions has its limits. No worse mistake can be 
made than that of allowing an establishment to be 
looked upon as a training school, to be used mainly 
for the education of many of its employes. All ** 
employes should bear in mind that each shop exists, 
first, last, and all the time, for the purpose of paying 
dividends to its owners. They should have patience, 
and never lose sight of this fact. And no man should 
expect promotion until after he has trained his suc- 
cessor to take his place. The writer is quite sure 
that in his own case, as a young man, no one ele- 
ment was of such assistance to him in obtaining 
new opportunities as the practice of invariably train- 



144 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

ing another man to fill his position before asking for 
advancement. 

The first of the functional foremen to be brought 
into actual contact with the men should be the inspec- 
tor; and the whole system of inspection, with its 
proper safeguards, should be in smooth and success- 
ful operation before any steps are taken toward 
stimulating the men to a larger output; otherwise 
an increase in quantity will probably be accompanied 
by a falling off in quality. 

Next choose for the application of the two princi- 
pal functional foremen, viz., the speed boss and the 
gang boss, that portion of the work in which there 
is the largest need of, and opportunity for, making 
a gain. It is of the utmost importance that the 
first combined application of time study, slide rules, 
instruction cards, functional foremanship, and a 
premium for a large daily task should prove a suc- 
cess both for the workmen and for the company, 
and for this reason a simple class of work should be 
chosen for a start. The entire efforts of the new 
management should be centered on one point, and 
continue there until unqualified success has been 
attained. 

When once this gain has been made, a peg should 
be put in which shall keep it from sliding back in the 
least; and it is here that the task idea with a time 
limit for each job will be found most useful. Under 
ordinary piece work, or the Towne-Halsey plan, the 
men are likely at any time to slide back a consid- 
erable distance without having it particularly noticed 
either by them or the management. With the task 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 145 

idea, the first falling off is instantly felt by the work- 
man through the loss of his day's bonus, or his differ- 
ential rate, and is thereby also forcibly brought to 
the attention of the management. 

There is one rather natural difficulty which arises 
when the functional foremanship is first introduced. 
Men who were formerly either gang bosses, or foremen, 
are usually chosen as functional foremen, and these 
men, when they find their duties restricted to their 
particular functions, while they formerly were called 
upon to do everything, at first feel dissatisfied. They 
think that their field of usefulness is being greatly 
contracted. This is, however, a theoretical diffi- 
culty, which disappears when they really get into 
the full swing of their new positions. In fact the 
new position demands an amount of special infor- 
mation, forethought, and a clear-cut, definite respon- 
sibility that they have never even approximated in 
the past, and which is amply sufficient to keep all 
of their best faculties and energies alive and fully 
occupied. It is the experience of the writer that 
there is a great commercial demand for men with 
this sort of definite knowledge, who are used to 
accepting real responsibility and getting results; so 
that the training in their new duties renders them 
more instead of less valuable. 

As a rule, the writer has found that those who 
were growling the most, and were loudest in assert- 
ing that they ought to be doing the whole thing, were 
only one-half or one-quarter performing their own 
particular functions. This desire to do every one's 
else work in addition to their own generally dis- 



146 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

appears when they are held to strict account in 
their particular line, and are given enough work to 
keep them hustling. 

There are many people who will disapprove of the 
whole scheme of a planning department to do the 
thinking for the men, as well as a number of foremen 
to assist and lead each man in his work, on the ground 
that this does not tend to promote independence, 
self-reliance, and originality in the individual. Those 
holding this view, however, must take exception to 
the whole trend of modern industrial development; 
and it appears to the writer that they overlook the 
real facts in the case. 

It is true, for instance, that the planning room, 
and functional foremanship, render it possible for 
an intelligent laborer or helper in time to do much 
of the work now done by a machinist. Is not this 
a good thing for the laborer and helper? He is given 
a higher class of work, which tends to develop him 
and gives him better wages. In the sympathy for 
the machinist the case of the laborer is overlooked. 
This sympathy for the machinist is, however, wasted, 
since the machinist, with the aid of the new system, 
will rise to a higher class of work which he was un- 
able to do in the past, and in addition, divided or 
functional foremanship will call for a larger number 
of men in this class, so that men, who must other- 
wise have remained machinists all their lives, will 
have the opportunity of rising to a foremanship. 

The demand for men of originality and brains was 
never so great as it is now, and the modern subdivi- 
sion of labor, instead of dwarfing men, enables them 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 147 

all along the line to rise to a higher plane of efficiency, 
involving at the same time more brain work and less 
monotony. The type of man who was formerly a 
day laborer and digging dirt is now for instance 
making shoes in a shoe factory. The dirt handling 
is done by Italians or Hungarians. 

After the planning room with functional foreman- 
ship has accomplished its most difficult task, of 
teaching the men how to do a full day's work them- 
selves, and also how to get it out of their machines 
steadily, then, if desired, the number of non-pro- 
ducers can be diminished, preferably, by giving each 
type of functional foreman more to do in his spe- 
cialty; or in the case of a very small shop, by combin- 
ing two different functions in the same man. The 
former expedient is, however, much to be preferred 
to the latter. There need never be any worry about 
what is to become of those engaged in systematiz- 
ing after the period of active organization is over. 
The difficulty will still remain even with functional 
foremanship, that of getting enough good men to 
fill the positions, and the demand for competent 
gang bosses will always be so great that no good 
boss need look for a job. 

Of all the farces in management the greatest is ft 
that of an establishment organized along well planned 
lines, with all of the elements needed for success, and 
yet which fails to get either output or economy. 
There must be some man or men present in the or- 
ganization who will not mistake the form for the 
essence, and who will have brains enough to find out 
those of their employes who "get there," and nerve 



148 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

enough to make it unpleasant for those who fail, as 
well as to reward those who succeed. No system 
can do away with the need of real men. Both sys- 
tem and good men are needed, and after introducing 
the best system, success will be in proportion to the 
ability, consistency, and respected authority of the 
management. 

In a book of this sort, it would be manifestly im- 
possible to discuss at any length all of the details 
which go toward making the system a success. Some 
of them are of such importance as to render at least 
a brief reference to them necessary. And first among 
these comes the study of unit times. 
, This, as already explained, is the most important 
element of the system advocated by the writer. 
Without it, the definite, clear-cut directions given 
to the workman, and the assigning of a full, yet just, 
daily task, with its premium for success, would be 
impossible; and the arch without the keystone would 
fall to the ground. 

In 1883, while foreman of the machine shop of 
the Midvale Steel Company of Philadelphia, it 
occurred to the writer that it was simpler to time 
with a stop watch each of the elements of the various 
kinds of work done in the place, and then find the 
quickest time in which each job could be done by 
summing up the total times of its component parts, 
than it was to search through the time records of 
former jobs and guess at the proper time and price. 
After practising this method of time study himself 
for about a year, as well as circumstances would per- 
mit, it became evident that the system was a success. 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 149 

The writer then established the time-study and rate- 
fixing department, which has given out piece work 
prices in the place ever since. 

This department far more than paid for itself from 
the very start; but it was several years before the 
full benefits of the system were felt, owing to the 
fact that the best methods of making and recording 
time observations, as well as of determining the 
maximum capacity of each of the machines in the 
place v and of making working tables and time tables, 
were not at first adopted. 

It has been the writer's experience that the diffi- 
culties of scientific time study are underestimated at 
first, and greatly overestimated after actually try- 
ing the work for two or three months. The average 
manager who decides to undertake the study of 
unit times in his works fails at first to realize that 
he is starting a new art or trade. He understands, 
for instance, the difficulties which he would meet 
with in establishing a drafting room, and would look 
for but small results at first, if he were to give a bright 
man the task of making drawings, who had never 
worked in a drafting room, and who was not even 
familiar with drafting implements and methods, but 
he entirely underestimates the difficulties of this new 
trade. 

The art of studying unit times is quite as important 
and as difficult as that of the draftsman. It should 
be undertaken seriously, and looked upon as a pro- 
fession. It has its own peculiar implements and 
methods, without the use and understanding of 
which progress will necessarily be slow, and in the ab- 



150 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

sence of which there will be more failures than suc- 
cesses scored at first. 

When, on the other hand, an energetic, determined 
man goes at time study as if it were his life's work, 
with the determination to succeed, the results which 
he can secure are little short of astounding. The 
difficulties of the task will be felt at once and so 
strongly by any one who undertakes it, that it seems 
important to encourage the beginner by giving at 
least one illustration of what has been accomplished. 

Mr. Sanford E. Thompson, C. E., started in 1896 
with but small help from the writer, except as far as 
the implements and methods are concerned, to study 
the time required to do all kinds of work in the 
building trades. In six years he has made a com- 
plete study of eight of the most important trades 
— excavation, masonry (including sewer-work and 
paving), carpentry, concrete and cement work, lath- 
ing and plastering, slating and roofing and rock 
quarrying. He took every stop watch observation 
himself and then, with the aid of two comparatively 
cheap assistants, worked up and tabulated all of his 
data ready for the printer. The magnitude of this 
undertaking will be appreciated when it is under- 
stood that the tables and descriptive matter for one 
of these trades alone take up about 250 pages. Mr. 
Thompson and the writer are both engineers, but 
neither of us was especially familiar with the above 
trades, and this work could not have been accom- 
plished in a lifetime without the study of elementary 
units with a stop watch. 

In the course of this work, Mr. Thompson has de- 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 



151 




: gg 






152 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

veloped what are in many respects the best imple- 
ments in use, and with his permission some of them 
will be described. The blank form or note sheet 
used by Mr. Thompson, shown in Fig. 2 (see page 
151), contains essentially: 

(1) Space for the description of the work and notes 
in regard to it. 

(2) A place for recording the total time of com- 
plete operations — that is, the gross time including 
all necessary delays, for doing a whole job or large 
portions of it. 

(3) Lines for setting down the "detail opera- 
tions," or "units" into which any piece of work may 
be divided, followed by columns for entering the 
averages obtained from the observations. 

(4) Squares for recording the readings of the stop 
watch when observing the times of these elements. 
If these squares are filled, additional records can be 
entered on the back. The size of the sheets, which 
should be of best quality ledger paper, is 8t inches 
wide by 7 inches long, and by folding in the center 
they can be conveniently carried in the pocket, or 
placed in a case (see Fig. 3, page 153) containing one 
or more stop watches. 

This case, or "watch book," is another device of 
Mr. Thompson's. It consists of a frame work, con- 
taining concealed in it one, two, or three watches, 
whose stop and start movements can be operated by 
pressing with the fingers of the left hand upon the 
proper portion of the cover of the note-book with- 
out the knowledge of the workman who is being 
observed. The frame is bound in a leather case 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 153 

resembling a pocket note-book, and has a place for 
the note sheets described. 

The writer does not believe at all in the policy 
of spying upon the workman when taking time 
observations for the purpose of time study. If the 
men observed are to be ultimately affected by the re- 




Figure 3. — Watch Book for Time Study 

suits of these observations, it is generally best to 
come out openly, and let them know that they are 
being timed, and what the object of the timing is. 
There are many cases, however, in which telling the 
workman that he was being timed in a minute way 
would only result in a row, and in defeating the 
whole object of the timing; particularly when only 
a few time units are to be studied on one man's 



154 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

work, and when this man will not be personally 
affected by the results of the observations. In these 
cases, the watch book of Mr. Thompson, holding 
the watches in the cover, is especially useful. A 
good deal of judgment is required to know when to 
time openly, or the reverse. 

The operation selected for illustration on the note 
sheet shown in Fig. 2, page 151, is the excavation of 
earth with wheelbarrows, and the values given are 
fair averages of actual contract work where the wheel- 
barrow man fills his own barrow. It is obvious that 
similar methods of analyzing and recording may be 
applied to work ranging from unloading coal to 
skilled labor on fine machine tools. 

The method of using the note sheets for timing a 
workman is as follows: 

After entering the necessary descriptive matter at 
the top of the sheet, divide the operation to be timed 
into its elementary units, and write these units one 
after another under the heading "Detail Operations." 
If the job is long and complicated, it may be ana- 
lyzed while the timing is going on, and the elemen- 
tary units entered then instead of beforehand. In 
wheelbarrow work as illustrated in the example 
shown on the note sheet, the elementary units con- 
sist of "filling barrow," "starting" (which includes 
throwing down shovel and lifting handles of bar- 
row), "wheeling full," etc. These units might have 
been further subdivided — the first one into time 
for loading one shovelful, or still further into the 
time for filling and the time for emptying each 
shovelful. The letters a, b, c, etc., which are printed, 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 



155 



are simply for convenience in designating the ele- 
ments. 

We are now ready for the stop watch, which, to 
save clerical work, should be provided with a deci- 
mal dial similar to that shown in Fig. 4. The 




Figure 4. — Stop Watch with 
Decimal Face 

method of using this and recording the times de- 
pends upon the character of the time observations. 
In all cases, however, the stop watch times are 
recorded in the columns headed "Time" at the top 
of the right-hand half of the note sheet. These 
columns are the only place on the face of the sheet 
where stop watch readings are to be entered. If 



156 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

more space is required for these times, they should 
be entered on the back of the sheet. The rest of 
the figures (except those on the left-hand side of the 
note sheet, which may be taken from an ordinary 
timepiece) are the results of calculation, and may 
be made in the office by any clerk. 

As has been stated, the method of recording the 
stop watch observations depends upon the work 
which is being observed. If the operation consists 
of the same element repeated over and over, the 
time of each may be set down separately; or, if the 
element is very small, the total time of, say, ten may 
be entered as a fraction, with the time for all ten 
observations as the numerator, and the number of 
observations for the denominator. 

In the illustration given on the note sheet, Fig. 2, 
the operation consists of a series of elements. In 
such a case, the letters designating each elementary 
unit are entered under the columns "Op./^the stop 
watch is thrown to zero, and started as the man 
commences to work. As each new division of the 
operation (that is, as each elementary unit or unit 
time) is begun, the time is recorded. During any 
special delay the watch may be stopped, and started 
again from the same point, although, as a rule, Mr. 
Thompson advocates allowing the watch to run con- 
tinuously, and enters the time of such a stop, desig- 
nating it for convenience by the letter "Y." 

In the case we are considering, two kinds of ma- 
terials were handled — sand and clay. The time of 
each of the unit times, except the " filling," is the 
same for both sand and clay; hence, if we have suffi- 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 157 

cient observations on either one of the materials, 
the only element of the other which requires to be 
timed is the loading. This illustrates one of the 
merits of the elementary system. 

The column "Av." is filled from the preceding 
column. The figures thus found are the actual net 
times of the different unit times. These unit times 
are averaged and entered in the "Time" column, on 
the lower half of the right-hand page, preceded, in 
the "No." column, by the number of observations 
which have been taken of each unit. These times, 
combined and compared with the gross times on the 
left-hand page, will determine the percentage lost 
in resting and other necessary delays. A convenient 
method for obtaining the time of an operation, like 
picking, in which the quantity is difficult to measure, 
is suggested by the records on the left-hand page. 

The percentage of the time taken in rest and other 
necessary delays, which is noted on the sheet as, in 
this case, about 27 per cent., is obtained by a com- 
parison of the average net "time per barrow" on the 
right with the "time per barrow" on the left. The 
latter is the quotient of the total time shoveling and 
wheeling divided by the number of loads wheeled. 

It must be remembered that the example given 
is simply for illustration. To obtain accurate aver- 
age times, for any item of work under specified con- 
ditions, it is necessary to take observations upon a 
number of men, each of whom is at work under con- 
ditions which are comparable. The total number 
of observations which should be taken of any one 
elementary unit depends upon its variableness, and 



158 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

also upon its frequency of occurrence in a day's 
work. 

An expert observer can, on many kinds of work, 
time two or three men at the same time with the 
same watch, or he can operate two or three watches 
— one for each man. A note sheet can contain 
only a comparatively few observations. It. is not 
convenient to make it of larger size than the dimen- 
sions given, when a watch-book is to be used, al- 
though it is perfectly feasible to make the horizontal 
rulings 8 lines to the inch instead of 5 lines to the 
inch as on the sample sheet. There will have to 
be, in almost all cases, a large number of note sheets 
on the same subject. Some system must be arranged 
for collecting and tabulating these records. On 
Tables 2a and 2b (pages 160 and 161) is shown 
the form used for tabulating. The length should 
be either 17 or 22 inches. The height of the form 
is 11 inches. With these dimensions a form may 
be folded and filed with ordinary letter sheets (8J 
inches by 11 inches). The ruling which has been 
found most convenient is for the vertical divisions 
3 columns to 1J inches, while the horizontal lines 
are ruled 6 to the inch. The columns may, or may 
not, have printed headings. 

The data from the note sheet in Fig. 2 (page 151) 
is copied on to the table for illustration. The first 
columns of the table are descriptive. The rest of 
them are arranged so as to include all of the unit 
times, with any other data which are to be averaged 
or used when studying the results. At the extreme 
right of the sheet the gross times, including rest and 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 159 

necessary delay, are recorded and the percentages 
of rest are calculated. 

Formulae are convenient for combining the ele- 
ments. For simplicity, in the example of barrow 
excavation, each of the unit times may be designated 
by the same letters used on the note sheet (Fig. 2) 
although in practise each element can best be desig- 
nated by the initial letters of the words describing it. 

Let 

a = thne filling a barrow with any material. 

b = time preparing to wheel. ~ 

c = time wheeling full barrow 100 feet. 

d = time dumping and turning. 

e = time returning 100 feet with empty barrow. 

/ = time dropping barrow and starting to shovel. 

p — time loosening one cubic yard with the pick. 

P = percentage of a day required to rest and neces- 
sary delays. 

L = load of a barrow in cubic feet. 

B = time per cubic yard picking, loading, and wheel- 
ing any given kind of earth to any given 
distance when the wheeler loads his own 
barrow. 

Then 

distance hauled , , N "1 27\ ,., ~. ,.,. 
m (c + e)J T J(l+P) • - (1) 

This general formula for barrow work can be 
simplified by choosing average values for the con- 
stants, and substituting numerals for the letters 



160 



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162 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

now representing them. Substituting the average 
values from the note sheet on Fig. 2 (page 151), our 
formula becomes: 



B = (p + [a + 0.18 + 0.17 + 0.16 + 

distance hauled 
or 100 



(0.22 + 0.26)1 1^1.27, 

£ = (p + [a + 0.51 + (0.0048) distance hauled] j) 1 .27 . (2) 

Formula 2 is applicable to any kind of earth hauled 
by men working at the speeds recorded on the note 
sheet to any distance. 

For sand, still using the values given on the note 
sheet (Fig. 2): 

B =- (o + [1.24 + 0.51 + 0.0048 (distance hauled)]^) 1.27, 
or 
B - 25.86 + 0.071 (distance hauled) (3) 

For a 50-foot haul: 

B = 25.86 + 0.071 (50) = 29.4 min. as the time for one man to 
load and wheel one cubic yard of sand a distance of 50 
feet. 

In classes of work where the percentage of rest 
varies with the different elements of an operation 
it is most convenient to correct all of the elementary 
times by the proper percentages before combining 
them. Sometimes after having constructed a general 
formula, it may be solved by setting down the sub- 
stitute numerical values in a vertical column for 
direct addition. 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 163 

Table 3 (page 164) gives the times for throwing 
earth to different distances and different heights. 
It will be seen that for each special material the 
time for filling shovel remains the same regardless 
of the distance to which it is thrown. Each kind 
of material requires a different time for filling the 
shovel. The time throwing one shovelful, on the 
other hand, varies with the length of throw, but 
for any given distance it is the same for all of the 
earths. If the earth is of such a nature that it 
sticks to the shovel, this relation does not hold. 
For the elements of shoveling we have therefore: 

s = time filling shovel and straightening up ready 

to throw. 
t — time throwing one shovelful. 
w = time walking one foot with loaded shovel. 
w 1 = time returning one foot with empty shovel. 
L = load of a shovel in cubic feet. 
P = percentage of a day required for rest and neces- 
sary delays. 
T — time for shoveling one cubic yard. 

Our formula, then, for handling any earth after 
it is loosened, is: 

T = ([s + 1 + (w + w 1 ) distance carried] -~ J(l + P). 

Where the material is simply thrown without 
walking, the formula becomes: 

r = (Wof)a+p). 

If weights are used instead of volumes: 



164 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 



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SHOP MANAGEMENT 165 

( . , N No. of lbs, in one toiA n D . 

Time shoveling one ton =*= (s+t) — . , , c r rrr J (!+")• 

\ weight oi one shovelful/ 

The writer has found the printed form shown on 
the insert, Fig. 5 (opposite page 166), useful in study- 
ing unit times in a certain class of the hand work 
done in a machine shop. This blank is fastened to 
a thin board held in the left hand and resting on the 
left arm of the observer. A stop watch is inserted 
in a small compartment attached to the back of the 
boapd at a point a little above its center, the face 
of the watch being seen from the front of the board 
through a small flap cut partly loose from the ob- 
servation blank. While the watch is operated by 
the fingers of the left hand, the right hand of the 
operator is at all times free to enter the time obser- 
vations on the blank. A pencil sketch of the work 
to be observed is made in the blank space on the 
upper left-hand portion of the sheet. In using this 
blank, of course, all attempt at secrecy is abandoned. 

The mistake usually made by beginners is that of 
failing to note in sufficient detail the various condi- 
tions surrounding the job. It is not at first appreci- 
ated that the whole work of the time observer is useless 
if there is any doubt as to even one of these conditions. 
Such items, for instance, as the name of the man or 
men on the work, the number of helpers, and exact 
description of all of the implements used, even those 
which seem unimportant, such, for instance, as the 
diameter and length of bolts and the style of clamps 
used, the weight of the piece upon which work is 
being done, etc. 

It is also desirable that, as soon as practicable 



166 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

after taking a few complete sets of time observations, 
the operator should be given the opportunity of 
working up one or two sets at least by summing up 
the unit times and allowing the proper per cent, of 
rest, etc., and putting them into practical use, either 
by comparing his results with the ac ' ual time of a 
job which is known to be done in fast time, or by 
setting a time which a workman is to live up to. 

The actual practical trial of the time student's 
work is most useful, both in teaching him the neces- 
sity of carefully noting the minutest details, and on 
the other hand convincing him of the practicability 
of the whole method, and in encouraging him in 
future work. 

In making time observations, absolutely nothing 
should be left to the memory of the student. Every 
item, even those which appear self-evident, should 
be accurately recorded. The writer, and the assist- 
ant who immediately followed him, both made the 
mistake of not putting the results of much of their 
time study into use soon enough, so that many times 
observations which extended over a period of months 
were thrown away, in most instances because of 
failure to note some apparently unimportant detail. 

It may be needless to state that when the results 
of time observations are first worked up, it will take 
far more time to pick out and add up the proper 
unit times, and allow the proper percentages of rest, 
etc., than it originally did for the workman to do 
the job. This fact need not disturb the operator, 
however. It will be evident that the slow time 
made at the start is due to his lack of experience, 









OBSERVATIONS OF HAND-WORK 


ON M..CHINE 


TOOLS. — 


flOORE 5 




















™ BE EN MADE 


Suop Management. 


By Frederick W. Taylor 






— »™ AND CUTS THAT BUOUEDHA 


WITH SODA WATER 








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ber of TV til 
































Times Reset 


Belt on Cone 
Step 










































Kind of Metal 
Heat Number 
Billet Number 


Length of Cut 








































Inches Cut In 










































Carbon 


Out of l'.mt" 




















































Cut 
























Per Cent, of Stretch 


Rough Edge 




































Timo 


















































OPERATIONS 


REMARKS 


TIME SHOULD HAVE TAKEN 




OPERATIONS 


REMARKS 


TIME SHOULD HAVE TAKEN 


OETTINO ,OH READY TO BET 








SETTING TOOL 






Learning what ia to be done, when work is 
sketched, laid out. 








Putting on tool post, drill rest, drill chuck, 
boring bar. 














Adjusting feed. 






Distance Helpers 


Adjusting speed. 






Getting chain on and tightened. 








Adjusting crank, table stops. 






Helpers 


Adjusting Vi-rt iin.1 slide, screw mtlirm gear 






Shifting work on floor with, without, hoist. 








Ai 1 just i nt: fr:imi', poppet, rrosshead. 






Helpers 




and set screws. 






















circular vertic 


al 


EXTRA HAND-WORK 


— 




-—TAKEN 








Chipping scale. 






Taking off ili:iin. Helpers 








Chipping centre punching. 








ACTUAL TIME OP GETTING , - BEADY TO SET 


OE.T.^OB HEADY TO SET SHOHED HAVE 




Hand 'urning. 






Considering how to clamp. 
















Getting out tools. Number 










Filing. 








Rp il ing off. 






Shifting table, tool holder, vertically , 








Stumping. 






round , parallel 




_WO„ 








ACTUAL TIME OF EXTRA HAND WORK. 














Shifting work, getting work on centres, set- 








Taking off. 




.bolts 




ting work true, with, without hoist. 
Helpers 
















Taking off. 














wooden supii 












rest., spide 




knee pliite, steady 
chuck. 




Drawing down set screws on 








, miiwTxi 






stops. 










lee plate, steady 
ck. 








Taking off V blocks. 


rest, spider, universal chu 


pieces small packing. 






Putting on parallel blocks. 












Putting on V blocks. 


















pieces, small packing. 








Taking off tool post, drill rest, drill chuck, 
Ijo ring bar. 












.false table, face 












' 






plate. 


Moving work to floor with, without, hoist. 
Helpers. 








Putting on, taking off, horizontal side. 










Laying out, trying with templet, rod. 
















Levelling. 








Taking out tool fastened by 










Squaring wilh wooden, trv, square, plumb bo 












Fixing soda water. 












TC. . 










SETTING WORK BBOULD HAVE TAKEN 
















ACTUAL TIME OF REMOVING WORK, E 




REMOVING WORK, ETC., SHOULD HAVE TAKEN 








ACCIDENTAL DEEAYS 












CAREO 




i,.m: 













































SHOP MANAGEMENT 167 

and he must take it for granted that later many- 
short-cuts can be found, and that a man with an 
average memory will be able with practice to carry 
all of the important time units in his head. 

No system of time study can be looked upon as a ^ 
success unless it enables the time observer, after a 
reasonable amount of study, to predict with accuracy 
how long it should take a good man to do almost 
any job in the particular trade, or branch of a trade, 
to which the time student has been devoting himself. 
It is true that hardly any two jobs in a given trade 
are exactly the same and that if a time student were 
to follow the old method of studying and recording 
the whole time required to do the various jobs which 
came under his observation, without dividing them 
into their elements, he would make comparatively 
small progress in a lifetime, . and at best would be- 
come a skilful guesser. It is, however, equally true 
that all of the work done in a given trade can be 
divided into a comparatively small number of ele- 
ments or units, and that with proper implements 
and methods it is comparatively easy for a skilled 
observer to determine the time required by a good 
man to do any one of these elementary units. 

Having carefully recorded the time for each of 
these elements, it is a simple matter to divide each 
job into its elementary units, and by adding their 
times together, to arrive accurately at the total 
time for the job. The elements of the art which at 
first appear most difficult to investigate are the per- 
centages which should be allowed, under different 
conditions, for rest and for accidental or unavoidable 



168 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

delays. These elements can, however, be studied 
with about the same accuracy as the others. 

Perhaps the greatest difficulty rests upon the fact 
that no two men work at exactly the same speed. 
The writer has found it best to take his time observa- 
tions on first-class men only, when they can be 
found; and these men should be timed when working 
at their best. Having obtained the best time of a 
first-class man, it is a simple matter to determine 
the percentage which an average man will fall short 
of this maximum. 

It is a good plan to pay a first-class man an extra 
price while his work is being timed. When work- 
men once understand that the time study is being 
made to enable them to earn higher wages, the writer 
has found them quite ready to help instead of hin- 
dering him in his work. The division of a given job 
into its proper elementary units, before beginning 
the time study, calls for considerable skill and good 
judgment. If the job to be observed is one which 
will be repeated over and over again, or if it is one 
of a series of similar jobs which form an important 
part of the standard work of an establishment, or 
of the trade which is being studied, then it is best 
to divide the job into elements which are rudi- 
mentary. In some cases this subdivision should be 
carried to a point which seems at first glance almost 
absurd. 

For example, in the case of the study of the art 
of shoveling earths, referred to in Table 3, page 164, 
it will be seen that handling a shovelful of dirt is 
subdivided into, 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 169 

s = "Time filling shovel and straightening 
up ready to throw/' 
and t = "Time throwing one shovelful.'' 

The first impression is that this minute subdivision 
of the work into elements, neither of which takes 
more than five or six seconds to perform, is little 
short of preposterous; yet if a rapid and thorough 
time study of the art of shoveling is to be made, 
this subdivision simplifies the work, and makes time 
study quicker and more thorough. 

The reasons for this are twofold: 

First. In the art of shoveling dirt, for instance, 
the study of fifty or sixty small elements, like those 
referred to above, will enable one to fix the exact 
time for many thousands of complete jobs of shovel- 
ing, constituting a very considerable proportion of 
the entire art. 

Second. The study of single small elements is 
simpler, quicker, and more certain to be successful 
than that of a large number of elements combined. 
The greater the length of time involved in a single 
item of time study, the greater will be the likelihood 
of interruptions or accidents, which will render the 
results obtained by the observer questionable or 
even useless. 

There is a considerable part of the work of most 
establishments that is not what may be called stand- 
ard work, namely, that which is repeated many 
times. Such jobs as this can be divided for time 
study into groups, each of which contains several 
rudimentary elements. A division of this sort will 



170 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

be seen by referring to the data entered on face of 
note sheet, Fig. 2 (page 151). 

In this case, instead of observing, first, the "time to 
fill a shovel," and then the time to "throw it into a 
wheelbarrow," etc., a number of these more rudimen- 
tary operations are grouped into the single operation of 

a = "Time filling a wheelbarrow with any mate- 
rial." 

This group of operations is thus studied as a 
whole. 

Another illustration of the degree of subdivision 
which is desirable will be found by referring to the 
inserts, Fig. 5 (opposite page 166). 

Where a general study is being made of the time 
required to do all kinds of hand work connected with 
and using machine tools, the items printed in detail 
should be timed singly. 

When some special job, not to be repeated many 
times, is to be studied, then several elementary items 
can be grouped together and studied as a whole, in 
such groups for example as: 

(a) Getting job ready to set. 
(6) Setting work. 

(c) Setting tool. 

(d) Extra hand work. 

(e) Removing work. 

And in some cases even these groups can be further 
condensed. 

An illustration of the time units which it is de- 
sirable to sum up and properly record and index for 
a certain kind of lathe work is given in Fig. 6. 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 



171 



The Midvale Steel Go. 

Form D — 124. Machine Shop 18. 

ESTIMATES FOB WORK ON LATHES 



OPERATIONS CONNECTED WITH PREPAR- 
ING TO MACHINE WORK ON LATHES 
AND WITH REMOVING WORK TO FLOOR 
AFTER IT HAS BEEN MACHINED 



OPERATIONS 



TIME IN 
MINUTES 



Putting chain on, Work on 

Floor 
Putting chain on, Work on 

Centers 
Taking off chain, Work on 

Floor 
Taking off chain, Work on 

Centers 
Putting on Carrier 
Taking off 

Lifting Work to Shears 
Getting Work on Centers 
Lifting Work from Centers 

to Floor 
Turning Work, end for end 
Adjusting Soda Water 
Stamping 
Center-punching 
Trying Trueness with Chalk 
" with Calipers 
" with Gauge 
Putting in Mandrel 
Taking out " 
Putting in Plug Centers 
Taking out " " 

Putting in False Centers 
Taking out " " 

Putting on Spiders 
Taking off " 
Putting on Follow Rest 
Taking off 

Putting on Face Plate 
Taking off " " 
Putting on Chuck 
Taking off 
Laying out 
Changing Tools 
Putting in Packing 
Cut to Cut 

Learning what is to be done 
Considering how to Clamp 
Oiling up 
Cleaning Machine 
Changing Time Notes 
Changing Tools at Tool Room 
Shifting Work 
Putting on Former 
Taking off " 
Adjusting Feed 
" Speed 
" Poppet Head 
" Screw Cutting Gear 



Name 

Sketch Number 

Order Weight 

Metal Heat No 

Tensile Strength. . . . Chem. Comp. 

Per cent, of Stretch 

Hardness, Class 



OPERATIONS CONNECTED WITH 
MACHINING WORK ON LATHES 



OPERATIONS 



Turning Feed In 
" Hand Feed 

Boring Feed In 
" Hand Feed 

Starting Cut 

Finishing Cut 

Fillet 

Collar 
Facing 
Slicing 

Nicking 

Centering 

Filling 

Using Emery Cloth 



Total 



Min- 
utes 



Machining — Two Heads Used 

" — One Head Used 
Hand Work 
Additional Allowance 



total time 
high hate 

LOW RATE 



Remarks 



Time actually taken 



Figure 6. — Instruction Card for Lathe Work 



172 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

The writer has found that when some jobs are 
divided into their proper elements, certain of these 
elementary operations are so very small in time that 
it is difficult, if not impossible, to obtain accurate 
readings on the watch. In such cases, where the 
work consists of recurring cycles of elementary 
operations, that is, where a series of elementary 
operations is repeated over and over again, it is 
possible to take sets of observations on two or more 
of the successive elementary operations which occur 
in regular order, and from the times thus obtained 
to calculate the time of each element. An example 
of this is the work of loading pig iron on to bogies. 
The elementary operations or elements consist of: 

(a) Picking up a pig. 

(b) Walking with it to the bogie. 

(c) Throwing or placing it on the bogie. 

(d) Returning to the pile of pigs. 

Here the length of time occupied in picking up the 
pig and throwing or placing it on the bogie is so small 
as to be difficult to time, but observations may be 
taken successively on the elements in sets of three. 
We may, in other words, take one set of observations 
upon the combined time of the three elements num- 
bered 1, 2, 3; another set upon elements 2, 3, 4; 
another set upon elements, 3, 4, 1, and still another 
upon the set 4, 1, 2. By algebraic equations we may 
solve the values of each of the separate elements. 

If we take a cycle consisting of five (5) elementary 
operations, a, b, c, d, e, and let observations be taken 
on three of them at a time, we have the equations: 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 173 

a + b + c = A 
b +c + d = B 
c + d + e = C 
d +e+a = D 
e +a+b = E 
A+B + C + D + E = S. 

We may solve and obtain: 

a = A +D — iS 

b = B + E — iS 

c = C + A — iS 

d = D + B — iS 

e = E + C — iS 

The writer was surprised to find, however, that 
while in some cases these equations were readily 
solved, in others they were impossible of solution. 
My friend, Mr. Carl G. Barth, when the matter was 
referred to him, soon developed the fact that the 
number of elements of a cycle which may be observed 
together is subject to a mathematical law, which is 
expressed by him as follows: 

The number of successive elements observed together 
must be prime to the total number of elements in the cycle. 

Namely, the number of elements in any set must 
contain no factors; that is, must be divisible by no 
numbers which are contained in the total number of 
elements. The following table is, therefore, calcu- 
lated by Mr. Barth showing how many operations 
may be observed together in various cases. The last 
column gives the number of observations in a set 
which will lead to the determination of the results 
with the minimum of labor. 



174 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 



No. of Operations 
in the Cycle 


No. of Operations that may- 
together 


be observed 


No. observed together 
that lead to a mini- 
mum of labor or is 
otherwise preferable 


3 


2 










2 


4 


3 










3 


5 


2, 3, or 4 








3 or 


4 


6 


5 










5 


7 


2, 3, 4, 5, or 6 








4 or 


6 


8 


3, 5, or 7 








5 or 


7 


9 


2, 4, 5, 7, or 8 








5 or 


8 


10 


3, 7, or 9 








7 or 


9 


11 


2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 


9, 


or 


10 


5 or 


10 


12 


5, 7, or 11 








7 or 


11 



When time study is undertaken in a systematic 
way, it becomes possible to do greater justice in 
many ways both to employers and workmen than 
has been done in the past. For example, we all 
know that the first time that even a skilled workman 
does a job it takes him a longer time than is required 
after he is familiar with his work, and used to a 
particular sequence of operations. The practised 
time student can not only figure out the time in 
which a piece of work should be done by a good man, 
after he has become familiar with this particular 
job through practice, but he should also be able to 
state how much more time would be required to do 
the same job when a good man goes. at it for the first 
time; and this knowledge would make it possible 
to assign one time limit and price for new work, and 
a smaller time and price for the same job after being 
repeated, which is much more fair and just to both 
parties than the usual fixed price. 

As the writer has said several times, the difference 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 175 

between the best speed of a first-class man and the 
actual speed of the average man is very great. One 
of the most difficult pieces of work which must be 
faced by the man who is to set the daily tasks is to 
decide just how hard it is wise for him to make the 
task. Shall it be fixed for a first-class man, and if 
not, then at what point between the first-class and 
the average? One fact is clear, it should always be 
well above the performance of the average man, since 
men will invariably do better if a bonus is offered 
them than they have done without this incentive. 
The writer has, in almost all cases, solved this part 
of the problem by fixing a task which required a 
first-class man to do his best, and then offering a 
good round premium. When this high standard 
is set it takes longer to raise the men up to it. But 
it is surprising after all how rapidly they develop. 

The precise point between the average and the 
first-class, which is selected for the task, should 
depend largely upon the labor market in which the 
works is situated. If the works were in a fine labor 
market, such, for instance, as that of Philadelphia, 
there is no question that the highest standard should 
be aimed at. If, on the other hand, the shop re- 
quired a good deal of skilled labor, and was situated 
in a small country town, it might be wise to aim 
rather lower. There is a great difference in the labor 
markets of even some of the adjoining states in this 
country, and in one instance, in which the writer 
was aiming at a high standard in organizing a works, 
he found it necessary to import almost all of his men 
from a neighboring state before meeting with success. 



176 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

Whether the bonus is given only when the work is 
done in the quickest time or at some point between 
this and the average time, in all cases the instruction 
card should state the best time in which the work 
can be done by a first-class man. There will then 
be no suspicion on the part of the men when a longer 
" bonus time" is allowed that the time student does 
not really know the possibilities of the case. For 
example, the instruction card might read: 

Proper time . 65 minutes 

Bonus given first time job is done. 108 minutes 

It is of the greatest importance that the man who 
has charge of assigning tasks should be perfectly 
straightforward in all of his dealings with the men. 
Neither in this nor in any other branch of the manage- 
ment should a man make any pretense of having 
more knowlege than he really possesses. He should 
impress the workmen with the fact that he is dead 
in earnest, and that he fully intends to know all about 
it some day; but he should make no claim to om- 
niscience, and should always be ready to acknowledge 
and correct an error if he makes one. This combi- 
nation of determination and frankness establishes 
a sound and^healthy relation between the manage- 
ment and men. 

There is no class of work which cannot be profitably 
submitted to time study, by dividing it into its time 
elements, except such operations as take place in 
the head of the worker; and the writer has even seen 
a time study made of the speed of an average and 
first-class boy in solving problems in mathematics. 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 177 

Clerk work can well be submitted to time study, and 
a daily task assigned in work of this class which at 
first appears to be very miscellaneous in its character. 

One of the needs of modern management is that 
of literature on the subject of time study. The 
writer quotes as follows from his paper on "A Piece 
Rate System/' written in 1895: 

"Practically the greatest need felt in an establish- 
ment wishing to start a rate-fixing department is the 
lack of data as to the proper rate of speed at which 
work should be done. There are hundreds of opera- 
tions which are common to most large establish- 
ments, yet each concern studies the speed problem 
for itself, and days of labor are wasted in what should 
be settled once for all, and recorded in a form which 
is available to all manufacturers. 

" What is needed is a hand-book on the speed with 
which work can be done, similar to the elementary 
engineering handbooks. And the writer ventures to 
predict that such a book will before long be forth- 
coming. Such a book should describe the best 
method of making, recording, tabulating, and index- 
ing time observations, since much time and effort 
are wasted by the adoption of inferior methods." 

Unfortunately this prediction has not yet been 
realized. The writer's chief object in inducing Mr. 
Thompson to undertake a scientific time study of 
the various building trades and to join him in a 
publication of this work was to demonstrate on a 
large scale not only the desirability of accurate 
time study, but the efficiency and superiority of the 
method of studying elementary units as outlined 



178 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

above. He trusts that his object may be realized 
and that the publication of this book may be fol- 
lowed by similar works on other trades and more 
particularly on the details of machine shop practice, 
in which he is especially interested. 

As a machine shop has been chosen to illustrate 
the application of such details of scientific man- 
agement as time study, the planning department, 
functional foremanship, instruction cards, etc., the 
description would be far from complete without at 
least a brief reference to the methods employed in 
solving the time problem for machine tools. 

The study of this subject involved the solution of 
four important problems: 

First. The power required to cut different kinds 
of metals with tools of various shapes when using 
different depths of cut and coarseness of feed, and 
also the power required to feed the tool under vary- 
ing conditions. 

Second. An investigation of the laws governing 
the cutting of metals with tools, chiefly with the 
object of determining the effect upon the best cutting 
speed of each of the following variables: 

(a) The quality of tool steel and treatment of 
tools (i.e., in heating, forging, and tempering them). 

(b) The shape of tool (i.e., the curve or line of the 
cutting edge, the lip angle, and clearance angle). 

(c) The duration of cut or the length of time the 
tool is required to last before being re-ground. 

(d) The quality or hardness of the metal being 
cut (as to its effect on cutting speed). 

(e) The depth of the cut. 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 179 

(/) The thickness of the feed or shaving 

(g) The effect on cutting speed of using water or 
other cooling medium on the tool. 

Third. The best methods of analyzing the driving 
and feeding power of machine tools and, after con- 
sidering their limitations as to speeds and feeds, of 
deciding upon the proper counter-shaft or other 
general driving speeds. 

Fourth. After the study of the first, second, and 
third .problems had resulted in the discovery of cer- 
tain clearly defined laws, which were expressed by 
mathematical formulae, the last and most difficult 
task of all lay in finding a means for solving the entire 
problem which should be so practical and simple as 
to enable an ordinary mechanic to answer quickly 
and accurately for each machine in the shop the 
question, "What driving speed, feed, and depth of 
cut will in each particular case do the work in the 
quickest time?" 

In 1881, in the machine shop of the Midvale Steel 
Company, the writer began a systematic study of 
the laws involved in the first and second problems 
above referred to by devoting the entire time of a 
large vertical boring mill to this work, with special 
arrangements for varying the drive so as to obtain 
any desired speed. The needed uniformity of the 
metal was obtained by using large locomotive tires 
of known chemical composition, physical properties 
and hardness, weighing from 1,500 to 2,000 pounds. 

For the greater part of the succeeding 22 years 
these experiments we're carried on, first at Midvale 
and later in several other shops, under the general 



180 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

direction of the writer, by his friends and assistants, 
six machines having been at various times especially 
fitted up for this purpose. 

The exact determination of these laws and their 
reduction to formulae have proved a slow but most 
interesting problem; but by far the most difficult 
undertaking has been the development of the methods 
and finally the appliances {i.e., slide rules) for making 
practical use of these laws after they were discovered. 

In 1884 the writer succeeded in making a slow 
solution of this problem with the help of his friend, 
Mr. Geo. M. Sinclair, by indicating the values of 
these variables through curves and laying down one 
set of curves over another. Later my friend, Mr. 
H. L. Gantt, after devoting about 1 J years exclusively 
to this work, obtained a much more rapid and simple 
solution. It was not, however, until 1900, in the 
works of the Bethlehem Steel Company, that Mr. 
Carl G. Barth, with the assistance of Mr. Gantt 
and a small amount of help from the writer, succeeded 
in developing a slide rule by means of which the 
entire problem can be accurately and quickly solved 
by any mechanic. 

The difficulty from a mathematical standpoint of 
obtaining a rapid and accurate solution of this 
problem will be appreciated when it is remembered 
that twelve independent variables enter into each 
problem, and that a change in any of these will 
affect the answer. 

The instruction card can be put to wide and varied 
use. It is to the art of management what the draw- 
ing is to engineering, and, like the latter, should 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 181 

vary in size and form according to the amount and 
variety of the information which it is to convey. 
In some cases it should consist of a pencil memoran- 
dum on a small piece of paper which will be sent 
directly to the man requiring the instructions, while 
in others it will be in the form of several pages of 
typewritten matter, properly varnished and mounted, 
and issued under the check or other record system, 
so that it can be used time after time. A descrip- 
tion of an instruction card of this kind may be useful. 
After the writer had become convinced of the 
economy of standard methods and appliances, and 
the desirability of relieving the men as far as possible 
from the necessity of doing the planning, while 
master mechanic at Midvale, he tried to get his 
assistant to write a complete instruction card for 
overhauling and cleaning the boilers at regular 
periods, to be sure that the inspection was complete, 
and that while the work was thoroughly done, the 
boilers should be out of use as short a time as possible, 
and also to have the various elements of this work 
done on piece work instead of by the day. His 
assistant, not having undertaken work of this kind 
before, failed at it, and the writer was forced to do 
it himself. He did all of the work of chipping, 
cleaning, and overhauling a set of boilers and at the 
same time made a careful time study of each of the 
elements of the work. This time study showed that 
a great part of the time was lost owing to the 
constrained position of the workman. Thick pads 
were made to fasten to the elbows, knees, and hips; 
special tools and appliances were made for the various 



182 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

details of the work; a complete list of the tools and 
implements was entered on the instruction card, 
each tool being stamped with its own number for 
identification, and all were issued from the tool 
room in a tool box so as to keep them together and 
save time. A separate piece work price was fixed 
for each of the elements of the job and a thorough 
inspection of each part of the work secured as it 
was completed. 

The instruction card for this work filled several 
typewritten pages, and described in detail the order 
in which the operations should be done and the exact 
details of each man's work, with the number of each 
'tool required, piece work prices, etc. 

The whole scheme was much laughed at when it 
first went into use, but the trouble taken was fully 
justified, for the work was better done than ever 
before, and it cost only eleven dollars to completely 
overhaul a set of 300 H.P. boilers by this method, 
while the average cost of doing the same work on 
day work without an instruction card was sixty-two 
dollars. 

Regarding the personal relations which should be 
maintained between employers and their men, the 
writer quotes the following paragraphs from a paper 
written in 1895. Additional experience has only 
served to confirm and strengthen these views; and 
although the greater part of this time, in his work of 
shop organization, has been devoted to the difficult 
and delicate task of inducing workmen to change 
their ways of doing things he has never been opposed 
by a strike. 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 183 

" There has never been a strike by men working 
under this system, although it has been applied at 
the Midvale Steel Works for the past ten years; and 
the steel business has proved during this period the 
most fruitful field for labor organizations and strikes. 
And this notwithstanding the fact that the Midvale 
Company has never prevented its men from joining 
any labor organization. All of the best men in the 
company saw clearly that the success of a labor 
organization meant the lowering of their wages in 
order that the inferior men might earn more, and, 
of course, could not be persuaded to join. 

"I attribute a great part of this success in avoid- 
ing strikes to the high wages which the best men 
were able to earn with the differential rates, and to 
the pleasant feeling fostered by this system; but 
this is by no means the whole cause. It has for 
years been the policy of that company to stimulate 
the personal ambition of every man in their employ 
by promoting them either in wages or position 
whenever they deserved it and the opportunity 
came. 

"A careful record has been kept of each man's 
good points as well as his shortcomings, and one of 
the principal duties of each foreman was to make this 
careful study of his men so that substantial justice 
could be done to each. When men throughout 
an establishment are paid varying rates of day- 
work wages according to their individual worth, 
some being above and some below the average, it 
cannot be for the interest of those receiving high 
pay to join a union with the cheap men. 



184 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

"No system of management, however good, should 
be applied in a wooden way. The proper personal 
relations should always be maintained between the 
employers and men; and even the prejudices of the 
workmen should be considered in dealing with them. 

"The employer who goes through his works with 
kid gloves on, and is never known to dirty his hands 
or clothes, and who either talks to his men in a 
condescending or patronizing way, or else not at 
all, has no chance whatever of ascertaining their 
real thoughts or feelings. 

Above all is it desirable that men should be 
talked to on their own level by those who are over 
them. Each man should be encouraged to discuss 
any trouble which he may have, either in the works 
or outside, with those over him. Men would far 
rather even be blamed by their bosses, especially 
if the ' tearing out' has a touch of human nature 
and feeling in it, than to be passed by day after day 
without a word, and with no more notice than if they 
were part of the machinery. 

"The opportunity which each man should have 
of airing his mind freely, and having it out with his 
employers, is a safety-valve; and if the superin- 
tendents are reasonable men, and listen to and treat 
with respect what their men have to say, there is 
absolutely no reason for labor unions and strikes. 

"It is not the large charities (however generous 
they may be) that are needed or appreciated by 
workmen so much as small acts of personal kindness 
and sympathy, which establish a bond of friendly 
feeling between them and their employers. 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 185 

"The moral effect of this system on the men is 
marked. The feeling that substantial justice is 
being done them renders them on the whole much 
more manly, straightforward, and truthful. They 
work more cheerfully, and are more obliging to one 
another and their employers. They are not soured, 
as under the old system, by brooding over the in- 
justice done them; and their spare minutes are not 
spent to the same extent in criticising their em- 
ployers." 

The" writer has a profound respect for the working 
men of this country. He is proud to say that he 
has as many firm friends among them as among his 
other friends who were born in a different class, and 
he believes that quite as many men of fine character 
and ability are to be found among the former as in 
the latter. Being himself a college educated man, 
and having filled the various positions of foreman, 
master mechanic, chief draftsman, chief engineer, 
general superintendent, general manager, auditor, 
and head of the sales' department, on the one hand, 
and on the other hand having been for several years 
a workman, as apprentice, laborer, machinist, and 
gang boss, his sympathies are equally divided be- 
tween the two classes. 

He is firmly convinced that the best interests of 
workmen and their employers are the same; so that 
in his criticism of labor unions he feels that he is 
advocating the interests of both sides. The fol- 
lowing paragraphs on this subject are quoted from 
the paper written in 1895 and above referred to: 

"The author is far from taking the view held by 



186 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

many manufacturers that labor unions are an almost 
unmitigated detriment to those who join them, as 
well as to employers and the general public. 

"The labor unions — particularly the trades unions 
of England — have rendered a great service, not 
only to their members, but to the world, in shortening 
the hours of labor and in modifying the hardships 
and improving the conditions of wage workers. 

"In the writer's judgment the system of treating 
with labor unions would seem to occupy a middle 
position among the various methods of adjusting 
the relations between employers and men. 

"When employers herd their men together in 
classes, pay all of each class the same wages, and 
offer none of them any inducements to work harder 
or do better than the average, the only remedy for 
the men lies in combination; and frequently the only 
possible answer to encroachments on the part of 
their employers is a strike. 

"This state of affairs is far from satisfactory to 
either employers or men, and the writer believes the 
system of regulating the wages and conditions of 
employment of whole classes of men by conference 
and agreement between the leaders of unions and 
manufacturers to be vastly inferior, both in its moral 
effect on the men and on the material interests of 
both parties, to the plan of stimulating each work- 
man's ambition by paying him according to his 
individual worth, and without limiting him to the 
rate of work or pay of the average of his class." 

The amount of work which a man should do in 
a day, what constitutes proper pay for this work, 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 187 

and the maximum number of hours per day which 
a man should work, together form the most important 
elements which are discussed between workmen and 
their employers. The writer has attempted to show 
that these matters can be much better determined 
by the expert time student than by either the union 
or a board of directors, and he firmly believes that 
in the future scientific time study will establish 
standards which will be accepted as fair by both 
sides. 

VThere is no reason why labor unions should not ^. 
be so constituted as to be a great help both to 
employers and men. Unfortunately, as they now 
exist they are in many, if not most, cases a hinder- 
ance to the prosperity of both. 

The chief reasons for this would seem to be a 
failure on the part of the workmen to understand 
the broad principles which affect their best interests 
as well as those of their employers. It is undoubtedly 
true, however, that employers as a whole are not 
much better informed nor more interested in this 
matter than their workmen. 

One of the unfortunate features of labor unions * 
as they now exist is that the members look upon the 
dues which they pay to the union, and the time that 
they devote to it, as an investment which should 
bring them an annual return, and they feel that 
unless they succeed in getting either an increase in 
wages or shorter hours every year or so, the money 
which they pay into the union is wasted. The 
leaders of the unions realize this and, particularly 
if they are paid for their services, are apt to spend 



188 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

considerable of their time scaring up grievances 
whether they exist or not This naturally fosters 
antagonism instead of friendship between the two 
sides. There are, of course, marked exceptions to 
this rule; that of the Brotherhood of Locomotive 
Engineers being perhaps the most prominent. 

The most serious of the delusions and fallacies 
under which workmen, and particularly those in 
many of the unions, are suffering is that it is for 
their interest to limit the amount of work which a 
man should do in a day. 

There is no question that the greater the daily 
output of the average individual in a trade the 
greater will be the average wages earned in the trade, 
and that in the long run turning out a large amount 
of work each day will give them higher wages, 
steadier and more work, instead of throwing them 
out of work. The worst thing that a labor union 
can do for its members in the long run is to limit 
the amount of work which they allow each workman 
to do in a day. If their employers are in a competi- 
tive business, sooner or later those competitors 
whose workmen do not limit the output will take 
the trade away from them, and they will be thrown 
out of work. And in the meantime the small day's 
work which they have accustomed themselves to do 
demoralizes them, and instead of developing as men 
do when they use their strength and faculties to the 
utmost, and as men should do from year to year, 
they grow lazy, spend much of their time pitying 
themselves, and are less able to compete with other 
men. Forbidding their members to do more than 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 189 

a given amount of work in a day has been the greatest 
mistake made by the English trades unions. The 
whole of that country is suffering more or less from 
this error now. Their workmen are for this reason 
receiving lower wages than they might get, and in 
many cases the men, under the influence of this 
idea, have grown so slow that they would find it 
difficult to do a good day's work even if public 
opinion encouraged them in it. 

In forcing their members to work slowly they use 
certain cant phrases which sound most plausible 
until their real meaning is analyzed. They con- 
tinually use the expression, " Workmen should not 
be asked to do more than a fair day's work," which 
sounds right and just until we come to see how it 
is applied. The absurdity of its usual application 
would be apparent if we were to apply it to animals. 
Suppose a contractor had in his stable a miscella- 
neous collection of draft animals, including small 
donkeys, ponies, light horses, carriage horses and 
fine dray horses, and a law were to be made that 
no animal in the stable should be allowed to do more 
than "a fair day's work" for a donkey. The in- 
justice of such a law would be apparent to every 
one. The trades unions, almost without an exception, 
admit all of those in the trade to membership — 
providing they pay their dues. And the difference 
between the first-class men and the poor ones is 
quite as great as that between fine dray horses and 
donkeys. In the case of horses this difference is 
well known to every one; with men, however, it 
is not at all generally recognized. When a labor 



190 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

union, under the cloak of the expression "a fair 
day's work," refuses to allow a first-class man to do 
any more work than a slow or inferior workman can 
do, its action is quite as absurd as limiting the work 
of a fine dray horse to that of a donkey would be. 

Promotion, high wages, and, in some cases, shorter 
hours of work are the legitimate ambitions of a 
workman, but any scheme which curtails the output 
should be recognized as a device for lowering wages 
in the long run. 

Any limit to the maximum wages which men are 
allowed to earn in a trade is equally injurious to their 
best interests. The "minimum wage" is the least 
harmful of the rules which are generally adopted by 
trades unions, though it frequently works an injustice 
to the better workmen. For example, the writer 
has been used to having his machinists earn all the 
way from $1.50 to seven and eight dollars per day, 
according to the individual worth of the men. Sup- 
posing a rule were made that no machinist should be 
paid less than $2.50 per day. It is evident that if an 
employer were forced to pay $2.50 per day to men 
who were only worth $1.50 or $1.75, in order to 
compete he would be obliged to lower the wages of 
those who in the past were getting more than $2.50, 
thus pulling down the better workers in order to 
raise up the poorer men. Men are not born equal, 
and any attempt to make them so is contrary to 
nature's laws and will fail. 

Some of the labor unions have succeeded in per- 
suading the people in parts of this country that there 
is something sacred in the cause of union labor and 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 191 

that, in the interest of this cause, the union should 
receive moral support whether it is right in any 
particular case or not. 

Union labor is sacred just so long as its acts are 
fair and good, and it is damnable just as soon as its 
acts are bad. Its rights are precisely those of non- * 
union labor, neither greater nor less. The boycott, 
the use of force or intimidation, and the oppression 
of non-union workmen by labor unions are damnable; 
these acts of tyranny are thoroughly un-American 
and will not be tolerated by the American people. 

One of the most interesting and difficult problems 
connected with the art of management is how to 
persuade union men to do a full day's work if the 
union does not wish them to do it. I am glad of 
the opportunity of saying what I think on the matter, 
and of explaining somewhat in detail just how I 
should expect, in fact, how I have time after time 
induced union men to do a large day's work, quite 
as large as other men do. 

In dealing with union men certain general principles 
should never be lost sight of. These principles are 
the proper ones to apply to all men, but in dealing 
with union men their application becomes all the 
more imperative. 

First. One should be sure, beyond the smallest 
doubt, that what is demanded of the men is entirely 
just and can surely be accomplished. This cer- 
tainty can only be reached by a minute and thorough 
time study. 

Second. Exact and detailed directions should be 
given to the workman telling him, not in a general 



192 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

way but specifying in every small particular, just 
what he is to do and how he is to do it. 

Third. It is of the utmost importance in starting 
to make a change that the energies of the manage- 
ment should be centered upon one single workman, 
and that no further attempt at improvement should 
be made until entire success has been secured in 
this case. Judgment should be used in selecting 
for a start work of such a character that the most 
clear cut and definite directions can be given regard- 
ing it, so that failure to carry out these directions 
will constitute direct disobedience of a single, 
straightforward order. 

Fourth. In case the workman fails to carry out 
the order the management should be prepared to 
demonstrate that the work called for can be done by 
having some one connected with the management 
actually do it in the time called for. 

The mistake which is usually made in dealing with 
union men, lies in giving an order which affects a 
number of workmen at the same time and in laying 
stress upon the increase in the output which is de- 
manded instead of emphasizing one by one the 
details which the workman is to carry out in order 
to attain the desired result. In the first case a clear 
issue is raised: say that the man must turn out fifty 
per cent, more pieces than he has in the past, and 
therefore it will be assumed by most people that he 
must work fifty per cent, harder. In this issue the 
union is more than likely to have the sympathy of 
the general public, and they can logically take it 
up and fight upon it. If, however, the workman is 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 193 

given a series of plain, simple, and reasonable orders, 
and is offered a premium for carrying them out, the 
union will have a much more difficult task in defend- 
ing the man who disobeys them. To illustrate: If 
we take the case of a complicated piece of machine 
work which is being done on a lathe or other machine 
tool, and the workman is called upon (under the 
old type of management) to increase his output by 
twenty-five or fifty per cent, there is opened a field 
of argument in which the assertion of the man, 
backed by the union, that the task is impossible or 
too hard, will have quite as much weight as that 
of the management. If, however, the management 
begins by analyzing in detail just how each section 
of the work should be done and then writes out com- 
plete instructions specifying the tools to be used in 
succession, the cone step on which the driving belt 
is to run, the depth of cut and the feed to be used, 
the exact manner in which the work is to be set in 
the machine, etc., and if before starting to make any 
change they have trained in as functional foremen 
several men who are particularly expert and well 
informed in their specialities, as, for instance, a 
speed boss, gang boss, and inspector; if you then 
place for example a speed boss alongside of that 
workman, with an instruction card clearly written 
out, stating what both the speed boss and the man 
whom he is instructing are to do, and that card says 
you are to use such and such a tool, put your driving 
belt on this cone, and use this feed on your machine, 
and if you do so you will get out the work in such 
and such a time, I can hardly conceive of a case in 



194 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

which a union could prevent the boss from ordering 
the man to put his driving belt just where he said 
and using just the feed that he said, and in doing that 
the workman can hardly fail to get the work out on 
time. No union would dare to say to the manage- 
ment of a works, you shall not run the machine with 
the belt on this or that cone step. They do not 
come down specifically in that way; they say, 
"You shall not work so fast," but they do not say, 
"You shall not use such and such a tool, or run with 
such a feed or at such a speed." However much 
they might like to do it, they do not dare to inter- 
fere specifically in this way. Now, when your 
single man under the supervison of a speed boss, 
gang boss, etc., runs day after day at the given speed 
and feed, and gets work out in the time that the 
instruction card calls for, and when a premium is 
kept for him in the office for having done the work 
in the required time, you begin to have a moral 
suasion on that workman which is very powerful. 
At first he won't take the premium if it is contrary 
to the laws of his union, but as time goes on and it 
piles up and amounts to a big item, he will be apt 
to step into the office and ask for his premium, and 
before long your man will be a thorough convert to 
the new system. Now, after one man has been per- 
suaded, by means of the four functional foremen, etc., 
that he will earn more money under the new system 
than under the laws of the union, you can then take 
the next man, and so convert one after another right 
through your shop, and as time goes on public opinion 
will swing around more and more rapidly your way. 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 195 

I have a profound respect for the workmen of the 
United States; they are in the main sensible men — 
not all of them, of course, but they are just as sensi- 
ble as are those on the side of the management. 
There are some fools among them; so there are 
among the men who manage industrial plants. They 
are in many respects misguided men, and they 
require a great deal of information that they have 
not got. So do most managers. 

AIL that most workmen need to make them do 
what is right is a series of proper object lessons. 
When they are convinced that a system is offered 
them which will yield them larger returns than the 
union provides for, they will promptly acquiesce. 
The necessary object lessons can best be given by 
centering the efforts of the management upon one 
spot. The mistake that ninety-nine men out of a 
hundred make is that they have attempted to in- 
fluence a large body of men at once instead of taking 
one man at a time. 

Another important factor is the question of time. 
If any one expects large results in six months or a 
year in a very large works he is looking for the 
impossible. If any one expects to convert union 
men to a higher rate of production, coupled with 
high wages, in six months or a year, he is expecting 
next to an impossibility. But if he is patient enough 
to wait for two or three years, he can go among 
almost any set of workmen in the country and get 
results. 

Some method of disciplining the men is unfortu- 
nately a necessary element of all systems of manage- 



196 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

ment. It is important that a consistent, carefully 
considered plan should be adopted for this as for 
all other details of the art. No system of discipline 
is at all complete which is not sufficiently broad to 
cover the great variety in the character and dis- 
position of the various men to be found in a shop. 

There is a large class of men who require really 
no discipline in the ordinary acceptance of the term; 
men who are so sensitive, conscientious and desirous 
of doing just what is right that a suggestion, a few 
words of explanation, or at most a brotherly ad- 
monition is all that they require. In all cases, 
therefore, one should begin with every new man by 
talking to him in the most friendly way, and this 
should be repeated several times over until it is 
evident that mild treatment does not produce the 
desired effect. 
£ Certain men are both thick-skinned and coarse- 
grained, and these individuals are apt to mistake a 
mild manner and a kindly way of saying things for 
timidity or weakness. With such men the severity 
both of words and manner should be gradually 
increased until either the desired result has been 
attained or the possibilities of the English language 
have been exhausted. 

Up to this point all systems of discipline should 
be alike. There will be found in all shops, however, 
a certain number of men with whom talk, either 
mild or severe, will have little or no effect, unless it 
produces the conviction that something more tan- 
gible and disagreeable will come next. The question 
is what this something shall be. 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 197 

Discharging the men is, of course, effective as far 
as that individual is concerned, and this is in all 
cases the last step; but it is desirable to have 
several remedies between talking and discharging 
more severe than the one and less drastic than the 
other. 

Usually one or more of the following expedients 
are adopted for this purpose: 

First. Lowering the man's wages. 

Second. Laying him off for a longer or shorter 
period of time. 

Third. Fining him. 

Fourth. Giving him a series of "bad marks," and 
when these sum up to more than a given number 
per week or month, applying one or the other of the 
first three remedies. 

The general objections to the first and second 
expedients is that for a large number of offenses they 
are too severe, so that the disciplinarian hesitates 
to apply them. The men find this out, and some of 
them will take advantage of this and keep much of 
the time close to the limit. In laying a man off, also, 
the employer is apt to suffer as much in many cases 
as the man, through having machinery lying idle or 
work delayed. The fourth remedy is also objection- 
able because some men will deliberately take close 
to their maximum of "bad marks." 

In the writer's experience, the fining system, if 
justly and properly applied, is more effective and 
much to be preferred to either of the others. He 
has applied this system of discipline in various works 
with uniform success over a long period of years, and 



198 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

so far as he knows, none of those who have tried it 
under his directions have abandoned it. 

The success of the fining system depends upon two 
elements : 

First. The impartiality, good judgment and jus- 
tice with which it is applied. 

Second. Every cent of the fines imposed should 
in some form be returned to the workmen. If any 
part of the fines is retained by the company, it is 
next to impossible to keep the workmen from believ- 
ing that at least a part of the motive in fining them 
is to make money out of them; and this thought 
works so much harm as to more than overbalance 
the good effects of the system. If, however, all of 
the fines are in some way promptly returned to the 
men, they recognize it as purely a system of discipline, 
and it is so direct, effective and uniformly just that 
the best men soon appreciate its value and approve 
of it quite as much as the company. 

In many cases the writer has first formed a mu- 
tual beneficial association among the employes, to 
which all of the men as well as the company con- 
tribute. An accident insurance association is much 
safer and less liable to be abused than a general 
sickness or life insurance association; so that, when 
practicable, an association of this sort should be 
formed and managed by the men. All of the fines 
can then be turned over each week to this association 
and so find their way directly back to the men. 

Like all other elements, the fining system should 
not be plunged into head first. It should be worked 
up to, gradually and with judgment, choosing at 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 199 

first only the most flagrant cases for fining and those 
offenses which affect the welfare of some of the other 
workmen. It will not be properly and most effec- 
tiyely applied until small offenses as well as great 
receive their appropriate fine. The writer has fined 
men from one cent to as high as sixty dollars per 
fine. It is most important that the fines should be «*• 
applied absolutely impartially to all employes, high 
and low. The writer has invariably fined himself 
just as he would the men under him for all offenses 
committed. 

The fine is best applied in the form of a request 
to contribute a certain amount to the mutual bene- 
ficial association, with the understanding that unless 
this request is complied with the man will be dis- 
charged. 

In certain cases the fining system may not produce 
the desired result, so that coupled with it as an 
additional means of disciplining the men should 
be the first and second expedients of " lowering 
wages" and "laying the men off for a longer or 
shorter time." 

The writer does not at all depreciate the value 
of the many semi-philanthropic and paternal aids 
and improvements, such as comfortable lavatories, 
eating rooms, lecture halls, and free lectures, night 
schools, kindergartens, baseball and athletic grounds, 
village improvement societies, and mutual beneficial 
associations, unless done for advertising purposes. 
This kind of so-called welfare work all tends to im- 
prove and elevate the workmen and make life better 



200 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

worth living. Viewed from the managers' stand- 
point they are valuable aids in making more intelli- 
gent and better workmen, and in promoting a kindly 
feeling among the men for their employers. They 
are, however, of distinctly secondary importance, 
and should never be allowed to engross the attention 
of the superintendent to the detriment of the more 
important and fundamental elements of manage- 
ment. They should come in all establishments, 
but they should come only after the great problem 
of work and wages has been permanently settled 
to the satisfaction of both parties. The solution of 
this problem will take more than the entire time of 
the management in the average case for several 
years. 

Mr. Patterson, of the National Cash Register 
Company, of Dayton, Ohio, has presented to the 
world a grand object lesson of the combination of 
many philanthropic schemes with, in many respects, 
a practical and efficient management. He stands 
out a pioneer in this work and an example of a kind- 
hearted and truly successful man. Yet I feel that 
the recent strike in his works demonstrates all the 
more forcibly my contention that the establishment 
of the semi-philanthropic schemes should follow 
instead of preceding the solution of the wages ques- 
tion; unless, as is very rarely the case, there are 
brains, energy and money enough available in a 
company to establish both elements at the same 
time. 

Unfortunately there is no school of management. 
There is no single establishment where a relatively 



SHOP MANAGEMENT 201 

large part of the details of management can be seen, 
which represent the best of their kinds. The finest 
developments are for the most part isolated, and in 
many cases almost buried with the mass of rubbish 
which surrounds them. 

Among the many improvements for which the 
originators will probably never receive the credit 
which they deserve the following may be mentioned. 

The remarkable system for analyzing all of the 
work upon new machines as the drawings arrived 
from 'the drafting-room and of directing the move- 
ment and grouping of the various parts as they 
progressed through the shop, which was developed 
and used for several years by Mr. Wm. H. Thorne, 
of Wm. Sellers & Co., of Philadelphia, while the 
company was under the general management of Mr. 
J. Sellers Bancroft. Unfortunately the full benefit 
of this method was never realized owing to the lack 
of the other functional elements which should have 
accompanied it. 

And then the employment bureau which forms 
such an important element of the Western Electric 
Company in Chicago; the complete and effective 
system for managing the messenger boys introduced 
by Mr. Almon Emrie while superintendent of the 
Ingersoll Sargent Drill Company, of Easton, Pa.; 
the mnemonic system of order numbers invented 
by Mr. Oberlin Smith and amplified by Mr. Henry 
R. Towne, of The Yale & Towne Company, of Stam- 
ford, Conn.; and the system of inspection intro- 
duced by Mr. Chas. D. Rogers in the works of the 
American Screw Company, at Providence, R. I. 



202 SHOP MANAGEMENT 

and the many good points in the apprentice system 
developed by Mr. Vauclain, of the Baldwin Loco- 
motive Works, of Philadelphia. 

The card system of shop returns invented and 
introduced as a complete system by Captain Henry 
Metcalfe, U. S. A., in the government shops of the 
Frankford Arsenal represents another such distinct 
advance in the art of management. The writer 
appreciates the difficulty of this undertaking as he 
was at the same time engaged in the slow evolution 
of a similar system in the Midvale Steel Works, 
which, however, was the result of a gradual develop- 
ment instead of a complete, well thought out inven- 
tion as was that of Captain Metcalfe. 

The writer is indebted to most of these gentlemen 
and to many others, but most of all to the Midvale 
Steel Company, for elements of the system which 
he has described. 

The rapid and successful application of the general 
principles involved in any system will depend largely 
upon the adoption of those details which have been 
found in actual service to be most useful. There 
are many such elements which the writer feels should 
be described in minute detail. It would, however, 
be improper to burden this record with matters 
of such comparatively small importance. 



INDEX 



A Piece Rate System, 58. 

Ability, rising through especial, 17. 

Accident insurance associations, 

119, 120, 198. 
American Machinist cited, 38. 
American Screw Works, 73. 
American Society of Mechanical 

Engineers, 5, 37, 58, 80. 
Analysis of orders for machines, 

111, 112; of inquiries for new 

work, 111, 114. 
Apprentice system of Mr. Vauclain, 

202. 
Assembling sheet for time study, 

160, 161. 
Average man, work of, compared 

with first-class man, 24, 28, 50. 

Balance clerk, duties of, 113, 114. 

Barth, Carl G., law of cycle of oper- 
ations discovered by, 173; de- 
veloped a slide rule, 180. 

Belts, the tightening of, 125, 126. 

Bench work, time study for, 111- 
113. 

Bethlehem Steel Co., 46; case of, 
used in illustration of shop man- 
agement, 46-56, 73; functional 
foremanship in, 105, 106; concen- 
tration of departments in, 110. 

Bicycle balls, inspection of, 85-90. 

Bonus, men do better when it is 
offered, 175; time, 176. 

Bosses, gang, duties of, in military 
type of organization, 96-98; eight 
under functional management, 
99, 100; executive functional, 
four types of, 100; gang, 100, 101; 
speed, 101; inspectors, 101; re- 
pair, 101, 102; of the planning 
room, four types of, 102; im- 
provement due to introduction 
of, 108; and over-foremen, in 
system of functional foreman- 
ship, 108, 109. 

Boycott, the, 191. 



Change in management. See Man- 
agement, change in. 

Chemical manufactories, case of 
rival used as illustration, 18. 

Clerks, order of work and route, 
duties of, 102; instruction card, 
duties of, 102, 103; time and cost, 
duties of, 103. 

Contract system, 35. 

Cooperation, quotation on, from A 
Piece Rate System, 37; no scope 
for personal ambition in, 37; re- 
moteness of the reward, 37. 

Cost, of items manufactured, en- 
tered in planning room, 115; of 
production, lowered by separat- 
ing brain work from manual 
labor, 121. 

Cycles of elementary operations, 
172; mathematical law of, 173, 
174. 

Day work, 20; task work applied to 
71. 

Deceit involved in soldiering, 35, 41. 

Details must be carefully standard- 
ized, 65. 

Differential rate system of piece 
work, 58, 76; compared with 
task work with a bonus, 76-80; 
applied to inspection of bicycle 
balls, 85-90; applied to large en- 
gineering establishment, 92-94. 

Disciplinarian, shop, duties of, 103, 
104, 119. 

Disciplining of men, 195-199. 

Dividends, relation between the 
payment of, and shop manage- 
ment, 19, 20. 

Dodge, James M., 80, 143. 

Dollar, the, 6. 

Drifting, objection made to the use 
of the word, 41. 

Economy in industrial engineering, 
6, 7. 



203 



204 



INDEX 



Employers and men, personal 
relations between, 21, 22, 182- 
188. 

Employment bureau, 118, 119. 

Emrie, Almon, his system for man- 
aging messenger boys, 201. 

Engineer as an Economist, the, 5. 

Engineering, analogy between mod- 
ern methods of shop management 
and modern, 66-68. 

Exception principle, example of, 
109; coming more and more into 
use, 126. 

Executive functional bosses, duties 
of, 100-102. 

Expense exhibits, 115. 

Fining system, 197-199. 

First-class man, his work compared 
with average man's, 24, 25, 50; 
wages of, 25, 27; conditions of 
development, 28; treatment of at 
Bethlehem Steel Co., 55. 

Foremanship, functional. See Func- 
tional foremanship. 

Foremen, their duties under mili- 
tary type of organization, 94; 
functional, 98, 99, 108, 109; the 
selecting and training of, 138- 
140; best to begin by training in 
the full number of, 140; difficulty 
of selecting in advance those who 
are likely to prove successful as, 
140, 141; different types of men 
should be chosen as, 141-143; 
inspector first to be chosen, 144. 

Formulae in time study, 159, 162, 
163, 165. 

Four principles of good shop man- 
agement, 63, 64, 69, 70, 71, 75. 

Functional bosses, executive, duties 
of, 99, 102; of the planning room, 
duties of, 102-104. 

Functional foremanship, advan- 
tages of, 104, 105; how to realize 
full possibilities of, 105, 106; in 
limited use, 106; managers apol- 
ogize for, 106; introduced into 
Midvale Steel Co., 107; best way 
to introduce, 107, 108; and over- 
foremen, 108, 109; analogy of, to 
management of large school, 109; 
selection and training of foremen, 
138-140; a difficulty in introduc- 
ing, 145; objected to, 146. See 
Foremen. 



Functional management, what it 
consists in, 99, 100. 

Gang bosses, duties of, in military 
type of organization, 96-98; 
duties of, in functional manage- 
ment, 100, 101; improvement 
due to introduction of, 108. 

Gantt, H. L., 70, 77, 180. 

Halsey, F. A., 38; quoted, 42. 

Hand work, time study for, 111-113. 

High pay for success, 64. 

High wages and low labor cost the 
foundation of the best shop man- 
agement, 22, 23, 25, 27, 46; 
principles to be followed to ob- 
tain, 63. 

Improvement of system on plant, 
120. 

Information bureau, 116. 

Inspectors, duties of, 101; improve- 
ment due to introduction of, 108; 
first to be chosen, 144. 

Instruction card, for lathe work, 
171; description of, 180-182. 

Instruction card, clerks, duties of, 
102, 103. 

Insurance associations, accident, 
119, 120, 198. 

Labor cost low, the foundation of 

the best shop management, 22; 

conditions of high and low, 23. 
Labor unions, 186-194; the ideal, 

56, 57. 
Large daily task, 63. 
Lathe work, instruction card for, 

171. Limiting of amount of work 

by unions, 188, 189. 
Loafing, 30. 
Loss in case of failure, 64. 

Machine tools, methods employed 
in solving the time problem for, 
178, 179. 

Machines, analysis of orders for, 
111, 112; time study for opera- 
tions done by, 111, 113. 

Machinist, in system of functional 
foremanship, 146. 

Maintenance of system and plant, 
116-118. 

Man, well-rounded, qualities which 
go to make up, 96. 



INDEX 



205 



Management, Shop, unevenness in 
development of its elements, 17- 
19; lack of apparent relation be- 
tween, and the payment of divi- 
dends, 17, 19, 20; rise of men of 
especial ability, 17; master spirit 
in, 18; should be looked upon as 
an art, 18, 60, 63; elements of the 
successful, 19; in this country 
behind modern management, 20; 
art of, defined, 21; relation be- 
tween employer and men, 21 ff.; 
high wages and low labor cost 
the foundation of the best, 22, 63; 
ignorance in regard to the amount 
of time required for work, 24, 30, 
34; indifference to proper sys- 
tems, 30; indifference toward the 
men, 30; contract system, 35; 
failure of cooperative experi- 
ments, 37, 38; Towne-Halsey 
system of, compared with task 
system, 42-45; accurate time 
study the basis of good, 46, 58; 
example of, at Bethlehem Steel 
Co., 46-56; old and modern 
methods compared, 59; diffi- 
culties of radical changes in, 
60, 64; managers too over- 
whelmed by work to give thought 
to, 61, 62; a good organization of 
more importance than a good 
plant, 62; four principles which 
should be followed to unite high 
wages with low labor cost, 63, 
64, 69, 70, 71, 75; a large daily 
task desirable, 63, 69; standard 
conditions, 64, 71; high pay for 
success, 64, 70; loss in case of 
failure, 64, 71; necessity and 
economy of a planning depart- 
ment, 64-67; analogy between 
modern engineering and modern 
methods of, 66-68; freedom from 
strikes under scientific, 68; task 
system, 69, 76, 80; differential 
rate system, 76-94; shops under- 
officered, 94. 

Change in, functional manage- 
ment, 98-100; should not be 
made without foresight of what 
is involved, 128-130; object of, 
130, 131; men must be brought 
to see what is meant by, 131, 
132; instruction of men as re- 
gards, 132, 133; men must rise 



from one plane of efficiency to 
another, 133, 134; should be 
made gradually, 134, 135; change 
in, the first step of should be the 
selection of competent reorgan- 
izer, 135, 136; where beginnings 
should be made in, 136-138; the 
selecting and training of func- 
tional foremen, 138; inspectors 
first to be chosen, 144; the task 
idea, 144, 145; a difficulty in, 145. 

Master^ spirit, rise of, from humble 
position, 17; good management of 
his particular department, 18. 

•Messenger boys, Mr. Almon's sys- 
tem for managing, 201. 

Messenger system, 118. 

Metal tools, improvement in, 8, 9. 

Metcalfe, Captain Henry, his card 
system of shop returns, 202. 

Methods, desirability of standard- 
izing, 123, 124. 

Midvale Steel Works, under the 
old system, 44; functional fore- 
manship introduced into, 107; 
repair force in, 118; study of 
time problem carried on in, 179; no 
strikes in, 183; the policy of, 183. 

Military plan of management, 92, 
98, 99. 

Minimum wage, 190. 

Mnemonic symbol system, 115, 116. 

Mnemonic system of Messrs. Smith 
and Towne, 201. 

Mutual accident insurance asso- 
ciations, 119, 120, 198. 

Natural laziness, 30. 

Non-producers, and producers, rela- 
tive numbers of, 121, 122; what 
is meant by, 122; the diminishing 
of the number of, 147. 

Note sheet for time study, 151-158. 

Order of Work and Route clerk, 
duties of, 102. 

Orders for machines, analysis of, 
111, 112. 

Organization, the building of an 
efficient, slow and costly, 62; 
good, of more importance than a 
good plant, 62, 63. See Man- 
agement. 

Over-foremen, in system of func- 
tional foremanship, 108, 109. 
See Foremen. 



206 



INDEX 



Patterson, Mr., of the National 
Cash Register Co., 200. 

Pay department, 115. 

Piece Rate System, A, quoted, 37, 
81; cited, 58; its main object 
overlooked, 58; quoted, 177, 183- 
186. 

Piece work, feeling of antagonism 
under, 35; adoption of, at Beth- 
lehem Steel Co., 50, 53; task 
work applied to, 73. 

Planning department, 64; expense 
of, 65; necessity and economy 
of, 67; four functional bosses of, 
102-104; where best placed, 109, 
110; general management should 
belong to, 110; leading functions 
of, 112-120; objections sometimes 
made to its doing the thinking for 
the men, 146. 

Plant and system, maintenance of, 
116-118; improvement of, 120. 

Post Office Delivery, 118. 

Premium Plan, 43. 

Producers, and non-producers, rela- 
tive numbers of, 121, 122; what 
is meant by, 122. 

Promoting of men, 142, 143. 

Purdue University, 5. 

Reorganization. See Management, 
change in. 

Repair bosses, duties of, 101, 102; 
improvement due to introduc- 
tion of, 108. 

Repetition in work, 28. 

Reports, 117, 126, 127. 

Rogers, Charles D., 73, 201. 

Rush order department, 120. 

Sales department, inquiries for new 
work received in, analysis of, 114. 

Science of Industrial Management, 
9, 11. 

Selecting and training of men, 138- 
143. 

Sewing-machine, 8. 

Shop disciplinarian, duties of, 103, 
104, 119. 

Shop Management, great value of 
the monograph, 7, 9. 

Sinclair, George M., 180. 

Slide rules, 113, 180. 

Smart and Honest, 40. 

Smith, Oberlin, his mnemonic sys- 
tem of order numbers, 201. 



Soldiering, 30-34 funder the'Towne- 
Halsey plan, 40; enforced by fel- 
low workmen, 32, 34, 67. 

Speed, of a first-class and an aver- 
age man, 175; need of a book on, 
177. 

Speed bosses, duties of, 101; im- 
provement due to introduction 
of, 108. 

Speed element in Towne-Halsey 
and task system compared, 44, 
45. 

Standard conditions, 64. 

Standardizing, desirability of, 123- 
126. 

Standards, 116, 175. 

Stop watch, 155. 

Strikes, freedom from, under scien- 
tific management, 68; none in 
Midvale Steel Co., 183. 

Study of unit times. See Time 
study. 

Subdivision of job into unit opera- 
tions, 168-172. 

Symonds Rolling Machine Co., 83. 

System and plant, maintenance of, 
116-118; improvement of, 120. 

Task idea, 144, 145. 

Task system compared with Towne- 
Halsey system, 42. 

Task work, 69, 85; with bonus, 70; 
applied to day work, 71-73; 
applied to piece work 73; com- 
pared with differential piece 
work, 76-80. 

Taylor-White process of treating 
tool steel, 124. 

Taylor, Dr. F. W., his valuable con- 
tribution to the art of industrial 
engineering, 5, 7; Shop Manage- 
ment, 7, 9; The Art of Cutting 
Metals, 8; A Piece Rate System, 
58. 

The Art of Cutting Metals, 8. 

Thompson, Sanford E., 91; his 
study of unit times, 150; imple- 
ments developed by, 150-154. 

Thorne, Wm. H., his method of 
analyzing work upon new ma- 
chines, 201. 

Tickler, use of, 116-118. 

Time and cost clerk, duties of, 103. 

Time card, and workmen, 127, 128. 

Time study, 24, 30, 34, 45; basis 
of good management, 46, 58, 65; 



INDEX 



207 



under Towne-Halsey plan, 38, 
45; advocated, 46; study of at 
Bethlehem Steel Co., 48, 52-56; 
comparison of older methods 
with modern plan, 59; quickest 
time, 59; for hand work, 111-113; 
for operations done by machines, 
111, 113; advantages of, 148; 
difficulties of, 149; made by Mr. 
Thompson, 150; implements of, 
developed by Mr. Thompson, 150- 
154; note sheet, 151-158; watch 
book, 152, 153; stop watch, 155; 
of several men at once, 158; 
formulae in, 159, 162, 163, 165; 
assembling sheet, 160, 161; table 
for sjjoveling earth in average 
contract work, 164; every detail 
necessary in, 165, 166; practical 
trials of results desirable in, 166; 
should lead to accurate predic- 
tion of time, 167, 168, 174; sub- 
division of job into units, 168- 
172; classes of work which can be 
submitted to, 176, 177; need of 
literature on the subject, 177; for 
machine tools, methods employed 
in, 178, 179; in Midvale Steel Co., 
179-182; pay, etc., best deter- 
mined by, 187. 

Tools, desirability of standardizing, 
123-126; machine, methods em- 
ployed in solving the problem 
for, 178, 179. 

Towne, Henry R., 5; The Engineer 
as an Economist, 5; mnemonic sys- 
tem of order numbers amplified 
by, 201. 

Towne-Halsey system of manage- 
ment, described, 38-42, 59; and 
task system compared, 42; writer 
approves the plan of, 39, 61. 

Training and selecting of men, 138- 
143. 

Transportation, time study for, 
111-113. 

Trusts, component companies of, 
built up through especial ability 
of one or two men, 17. 

Typewriting-machine, 8. 



Union men, how to deal with,' 191- 

194. 
Unions, labor, 186-194. 
Unit times, study of. See Time 

Study. 

Vauclain, Mr., of the Baldwin Loco- 
motive Works,* his apprentice 
system, 202. 

Vise work, time study for, 111-113. 

Wadleigh, A. B., 54. 

Wage, minimum, 190. 

Wages, for first-class men, 25-27; 
should be regulated to fit special 
work, 28. 

Ward, Artemus, quoted, 70. 

Watch book, 152, 153. 

Welfare work, 199, 200. 

White, J. Maunsel, part discoverer 
of the Taylor-White process of 
treating tool steel, 124. 

Workman, and employer, interests 
should be mutual, 20; and em- 
ployer, relations between, 21, 
182-188; average and first-class, 
24; should be given highest class 
of work for which he is fitted, 28; 
29; should be called upon to do 
his best, 28, 29; should be paid 
according to his work, 29; loafing 
and systematic soldiering, 30-34; 
objection to piece work, 34; under 
contract system, 35; in military 
type of organization, 99; in func- 
tional management, 99, 100; and 
use of time card, 127, 128; must 
be brought to see what change in 
organization means, 131, 132; in- 
struction of, as regards reorgan- 
ization, 132, 133; must rise from 
one plane of efficiency to another, 
133, 134; looks upon change as 
antagonistic to his interests, 137; 
different types of men should be 
chosen, 141-143; his mistake in 
limiting amount of work, 188, 
189; needs proper object lessons, 
195; the disciplining of, 195-199. 
See Union men. 






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